Hanaq-Shaba smells the truth

Commander Hanaq-​​Shaba lay stretched out on his belly, waiting with grimacing impatience. The grit and splinters on the hard-​​packed floor scraped the bare skin of his forearms, and though his haunches were thickly protected with fur, the place seemed to be swarming with fleas.

But until he had been noticed, he was not permitted to disturb his lord by so much as the sound of his claws scratching his shaggy hide.

At last, when he must have thought he had made Hanaq wait long enough to remind him of his station – if not to make him miserable – Dantalion spoke. “I was not expecting a visit, rababah.”

Hanaq arched his thick neck and bowed his horns to the ground. “Peace be upon you, temanyeh!” he cried. “Your lowly – ”

Dantalion’s hand sliced up through the air, cutting Hanaq off in mid-​​speech. The demon held his breath, waiting to see what else his cruel lord might more literally sever, but Dantalion let his hand fall again.

“Keep your voice quiet, rababah,” he growled.

Hanaq lifted his head, so surprised that he dared look his lord in the face without leave. Unfortunately – or perhaps fortunately – the face was starkly silhouetted by the late afternoon sun, and Hanaq could read nothing upon it.

He did not understand why Dantalion had insisted on meeting him in this place if silence was essential. He could have received him anywhere. But Dantalion was behaving strangely lately. The words were being whispered all up and down the ranks.

“Your lowly servant begs pardon for his presence,” he continued softly, “and awaits your command.”

“Speak.”

Hanaq coughed and pointedly shifted his weight from arm to arm.

Dantalion pushed himself up from his bed of straw. “You may rise,” he sighed.

Hanaq stood and brushed himself off, attempting to be unobtrusive as he scratched for fleas.

“Speak, rababah,” Dantalion said, studying his fingernails as was his habit, though it appeared to Hanaq’s eyes that those fingernails were uncharacteristically dirty. “I hope for your sake this is urgent,” he muttered. “I believe I have already given you a command: to watch over that man.”

“So you did, temanyeh,” Hanaq bowed. “However, he needs little watching these days. He was already dead when we found him.”

Dantalion’s hand dropped like a mallet.

“He was already dead when you told us to find him!” Hanaq squealed. “You can’t expect us to raise the dead!”

Dantalion’s face flushed quite convincingly, though Hanaq certainly did not need to be convinced. “What happened?” he whispered.

“They were chased and captured, and the old man’s heart gave out.”

Hanaq shrugged. He supposed Dantalion would be disappointed that he had not been allowed to dispatch the man himself, in his own terrible way, but to Hanaq it seemed the important thing was that the man was dead.

“Who did this?” Dantalion asked.

“Scotsmen. Highlanders. One of their own was killed at the wedding of one of the man’s kin, and they meant to get a ransom for them.”

“One of their own?” Dantalion grimaced. “That man was not even real!”

Hanaq lifted a horned brow. “He wasn’t?”

“He was – ” Dantalion sucked in his breath through his teeth. “I was – he,” he whispered slowly, letting his breath out again with greater care. “I was their so-​​called kinsman. Idiots!”

“It merely proves that you make a very convincing man, temanyeh,” Hanaq said graciously.

Dantalion did not appear pleased by this compliment. “And the man with him?” he muttered.

“He is still prisoner. In his regard we lowly worms await your command.” Hanaq pressed his hands against his hairy haunches and bowed.

“Free him,” Dantalion said immediately. “See that he returns safely home. As for the men who captured them…”

Dantalion tapped a finger thoughtfully against his lip. Hanaq could clearly see the dirt beneath the nail.

“Any man who laid a hand upon them shall die by that hand.”

Hanaq bowed again.

“And send a murrain upon their cattle.”

Hanaq bowed a third time. “Understood.”

“And chase every cat from their lofts and barns,” Dantalion said. “May their rats be fat and their children be lean.”

Hanaq hesitated. This was a thorough punishment for the almost-​​accidental death of one man. Could it be that Dantalion had truly wanted the man safe and alive?

“Yes, temanyeh,” he said softly.

“And… a last curse,” Dantalion breathed.

Hanaq’s stomach clenched with dread. He watched as his lord’s eyes fell closed, slowly eclipsing their dim blue-​​gray until Dantalion could have seen nothing but what was inside of himself: a majestic malevolence as boundlessly deep as Heaven was high, as his hordes said of him with fear and pride.

“Their every fifth child shall rend the womb of its mother,” Dantalion said, “and the fifth children of their children, and theirs after them. For seven generations, no sixth child shall be born to that clan. So let it be done in my name.”

Hanaq clamped his hands against his thighs, but his arms stiffened in shock, and he could not begin a bow. Nor could he slow the gallop of his heart, and the more he fought to keep his breathing even, the more ragged it became.

Dantalion’s eyes snapped open. “Is it beyond the strength of your legion, Commander?”

Hanaq gasped and bowed his head. “No, temanyeh,” he said hoarsely. “We are honored.”

An honor it was, for it was through these century-​​spanning curses and blessings that the affairs of the Immortals were played out on earth. For this reason, however, they were seldom confided to such mortals as Hanaq-​​Shaba and his tribe. It would be some distant, unborn successor of his who would strike the last woman down. Such a curse might as well last forever, as far as he was concerned. It was a noble task.

But Hanaq did not know what he would tell his brothers. They would wonder at the importance of this one man, and why Dantalion did not take the task upon himself. What would have delighted them at one time would only worry them now. There was already too much whispering and too many rumors. Morale would not be good.

“Your presence begins to offend me, rababah,” Dantalion muttered.

Hanaq realized Dantalion had been watching him think, and he hurriedly bowed. “Please forgive it, temanyeh. I must trouble you with a last question.”

“Ask it.”

“What are we to do with the body?”

Dantalion’s fine face quivered briefly with what appeared to be pain. “What have they done with it?”

“Buried it. Did you want it?”

Dantalion wearily leaned his shoulder against the wall and looked down, not at his fingernails, but at his open and empty palms. “Nine demons shall guard it by night and by day,” he murmured.

“For…ever?” Hanaq asked meekly. “It is in a churchyard…”

“Until I dispose of it in my manner and in my time,” Dantalion snapped. “They can stand to sit in a churchyard for a few moons, can they not? Are they so very timid?”

Dantalion flung up his arms to punctuate his question just as Hanaq opened his mouth to reply. The words died in his throat, for the breath he took across his tongue to speak them brought with it a striking metallic taste, so out-​​of-​​place that it took Hanaq a long and dangerously silent moment to identify it, despite its familiarity.

Dantalion began to scowl.

Hanaq hurriedly swallowed and continued, willing his breath to come evenly and his voice to be firm. “No, temanyeh,” he bowed. “They will be honored.”

There could be no doubt – they were alone in the barn, and the chill damp that lingered from the morning’s rain would have brought out the odor sooner if it had come from anywhere but beneath Dantalion’s arms.

Hanaq did not know what he would tell his legions, except that it could not be the truth. He was not certain he knew it himself, but he did know that his fastidious lord had never before taken the illusion of humanity so far as its smell.