Blood Requiem

by Christopher Husberg

  The tiellans gasped, stepping back, and once again Winter instinctively activated her tendra. She could stop this. She had the power to do it. She could show Gord, Eranda, and the Druids her power.

  And, at the same time, show them the monster she had become.

  Again, she consulted Chaos. The sphere remained solid in her mind, unfalteringly white. Winter forced herself to relax. She had no part in what was about to happen.

  “Any one of you tries to leave, any one of you even moves, and your leader dies,” the human leader shouted. He nodded to his fellows, who stalked slowly forward.

  “We’re going to make examples out of a few of you,” he said. “The rest of you should consider yourselves lucky. You will go home to your families tonight.”

  Winter, Gord, and Eranda stepped back, away from the advancing humans with the rest of the crowd. Winter’s chest was tight, constricted, but she felt no fear for herself. She would be all right, whatever happened. But the feeling was there, all the same.

  “Each of you choose one,” the leader said to the men advancing on the tiellans. “Choose one, bring them up here with us. We’ll do it in front of everyone.”

  Tiellans screamed, clinging to one another, but the humans tore them away one by one, forcing them to the front of the room near the door, compelling them to kneel.

  “Take men or women, young or old, it doesn’t matter,” the man said. “This lesson is for all.”

  Winter, Eranda, and Gord huddled together, Gord wrapping his arms around both Winter and Eranda in a vain attempt to protect them. Now, twelve tiellans knelt before twelve humans, not including Ghian and the human leader who threatened him, near the doorway into the building. People wept, but none of the tiellans moved to stop what was being done to them.

  They are weak, Winter realized. Centuries of captivity had done this to her people. Even after emancipation, decades of persecution and derision and hatred had made them soft, brittle. They knew nothing but submission.

  “Now,” the human leader began, but before he could continue, one of the kneeling tiellans, a young man, turned on his captor and lunged. He took the human to the ground, but as quickly as he did the human standing directly beside them swung his club down on the young man’s head with a sickening crack. The young tiellan buckled to the ground. The club swung again, this time with more of a crunch than a crack. It swung again, and again, until the tiellan’s body was a bloodied mess on the floor.

  All around Winter, the other tiellans were hysterical, weeping and crying, but they seemed frozen in place, as Winter herself felt frozen, too. She shed no tears, made no sound, but the constriction in her chest had magnified, and her arms and legs felt very heavy. The one tiellan among them that had the courage to stand up to the humans had been slaughtered.

  What hope was there for the Druids?

  “It’s unfortunate he chose to do that,” the leader said, looking back into the tiellan crowd. “Because now that one doesn’t count. Rudd, go find another.”

  The tiellans began screaming again as, silently, the man who’d been tackled walked forward, glaring into the tiellan crowd with hooded eyes. He stopped directly in front of Winter.

  Winter, oddly, wanted to laugh. Let this man take her. Let him see what she would do to him.

  But when he reached out he did not grasp Winter. Instead, he dragged Eranda with him to the front of the room, forcing her to kneel down next to the sickening remains of the young tiellan man they’d already killed.

  A host of emotions burst inside of Winter. Anger at the helpless tiellans around her. Frustration at her inability to feel at home with Darrin, Eranda, and Gord, and fear that such a thing would never be possible again. Shame, knowing that what kept her from those she loved was what she herself had done. The person she had become.

  She had come home in an attempt to let go of her past, to give up being a weapon. But she’d been wrong. More than anything, these people—her friends, her family, her people— needed a weapon.

  Winter stepped forward. “You should have chosen me,” she said.

  This time, Winter did not consult Chaos. She did not hesitate, and reached out with thirteen tendra, one for each human in the room. Her first plucked the thin dagger out of the hands of the human leader. The man stared at his hand in shock. Her other tendra yanked the weapons away from the other humans, sending the clubs and cudgels and rods clattering, then lifted each human up by their clothes, and the building shook with the force of thirteen men slamming against the walls.

  “You think you have the power here,” Winter said. She heard Gord whisper her name, but ignored him. She was a monster, and he would have to grow used to it. She walked right up to the ringleader of the humans. “You’re wrong.”

  She stabbed the man’s own dagger through his neck, in one side and out the other. He fell to the floor with a gurgle, blood spouting from the wounds as he choked.

  Then, keeping the other humans pinned to the wall, Winter did the same thing to each of them. The act was simple, pushing the dagger in with one tendron, pulling it out with another, until each of the men was dying or dead. Then she dropped them all to the floor at once.

  Silently, Winter approached Eranda, helping the woman to her feet. They turned to face the other tiellans. Her people stared at her, wide-eyed, shocked, frozen. No one said anything, not Gord or Eranda or anyone.

  Winter did not care whether they said anything or not. It would not change what had happened, or what was about to.

  “They will not be the last,” Winter said. She glanced at Ghian. “You said a war was coming. It’s already here. You have multiple meetings like this that occur in the city?”

  Ghian only stared at her.

  Winter resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “I’m told you do. You need to band together. No more meeting separately. No more secrecy. Declare yourselves, make yourselves a force to be reckoned with. They will come after you now, there’s no stopping that. You need to be prepared.”

  “Who are you?” Ghian rasped, finally rising to his feet. He looked around at the bodies slumped against the wall. “How did you…” He glanced up at her, eyes wide. “Are you a goddess?”

  This time, Winter could not stop herself from laughing. I’m a daemon, she wanted to say. But to you, what is the difference?

  “Danica Winter Cordier.”

  Winter turned at the sound of Matriarch Esra’s voice. No one else here could possibly pronounce her name in that tone.

  “Hello, Matriarch. I wasn’t sure you would recognize me.”

  Esra approached, meeting Winter face to face. “I didn’t, not ’til just now. You… you’ve got your mother in you.”

  She had heard that before, time and time again.

  Gord had put his arm around Eranda’s shoulders. “Winter, we have much to discuss, you and me. But I fear you’re right. We ain’t got much time. Need to band together, as you said.” He hesitated, and in his eyes Winter suddenly saw a host of emotions she could hardly begin to understand. Fear. Pain. Horror. Love. “Will you stay with us?” he asked.

  Winter looked around, at Eranda and Gord and Matriarch Esra, then at Ghian and the matriarchs and elders and other tiellans in the room. She looked at the bodies, the men she’d killed.

  She did not belong here, just as she did not belong in Izet, or Pranna, or anywhere. But she wanted to belong here, and that hint of connection she’d felt with Ghian, through his speech and the removal of his araif, kept her here. Her desire to protect her old friends kept her here. She was a weapon, but she was the weapon her people needed.

  “I will,” Winter said, touching Gord’s arm. “I will, for now.”

  9

  North of Kirlan

  WHILE KNOT’S REFUSAL TO accept the position of Goddessguard had hurt, Cinzia understood why he had refused. She could not imagine what it would be like, to be without family, without home or background or identity.

  But it meant that she would have to do what she had planned ne
xt on her own.

  Cinzia wrapped her cloak—an old, thinning brown thing she’d borrowed from her father—around her shoulders as she made her way through the Odenite tents. The sun had set, and it was getting dark. Cinzia lifted her lantern, checking the candle within. Plenty of wax and wick to light her way.

  When she got to the edge of the clearing, she entered the forest. The location she sought was northeast of their own camp, not a mile away.

  She was going to see the Beldam.

  Their scouts—they had scouts now, which was something Cinzia had never considered, but Knot insisted was essential with a group this size, facing such opposition—kept vigilance over the Beldam’s group at all times. While the Beldam and the Odenites who had defected with her had not expressed any outright hostility towards them, their intentions were still unclear, and any attempts to make contact and discern those intentions had been rebuffed.

  But perhaps if Cinzia went herself, alone, the Beldam would listen. Unless they could finish the Codex translation soon—and that was unlikely—the Beldam was the only person she could think of who might have more information about the Nine Daemons, and about the Outsider that had attacked them the other day.

  As Cinzia moved through the forest, dusk became darkness, the shadows of the trees grew until they encompassed everything, and Cinzia shivered despite the relative warmth of the night. She was alone in a dark, unfamiliar forest; she had not anticipated the fear that would creep along behind her.

  Sooner than Cinzia expected, she began to hear voices carrying faintly through the trees. Lights flickered ahead. She stumbled on roots, and twigs caught in her hair despite her lantern, but she finally came upon a clearing, at the center of which was a small pond.

  Dozens of tents were packed into the clearing, and four or five large fires burned between them, each one surrounded by people. She ought to know these people, she thought. Not long ago they were Odenites, though the number of Jane’s followers had always been such that she had found it difficult to pick out more than a few individuals from the crowd. And the people in this clearing had chosen to follow the Beldam rather than Jane—rejecting their Prophetess almost as soon as they’d found her.

  For them, tiellans had no place in the new Church of Canta.

  Cinzia swallowed hard and pushed those thoughts down. She was not here to debate that issue. She was here for one reason only.

  Cinzia walked slowly into the camp, looking for any indication of where the Beldam might be. She approached one of the fires cautiously. Around the fire, people drank and sang and chatted with one another. Other than the conspicuous absence of any tiellans, it looked exactly like one of the fires in the Odenite camp.

  It did not take long for her to draw attention. One person glanced at her, then two, and soon everyone around the campfire she approached was staring at her in silence.

  They would not have forgotten her, of course: Jane’s sister, the first disciple.

  “What do you want?” someone finally asked.

  “I am looking for the Beldam,” Cinzia said, straightening her shoulders. “I need to speak with her.”

  “Of course you do,” someone muttered, their voice not quite low enough to be shielded by the crackle of the fire.

  “Where can I find her?” Cinzia asked. She did not believe any of these people would actually hurt her, but they clearly did not think much of her waltzing into their camp.

  “In her tent, near the fire at the center of camp,” a woman said, nodding her head in that direction.

  “Thank you.” Cinzia heard whispering as she walked away, but was grateful she could not make out specifics. She was not sure she wanted to know what the Beldam’s followers thought of her.

  The Beldam’s tent was not difficult to recognize. As Cinzia approached the larger fire at the center of camp, she saw one tent in particular that stood taller than the others, doors wide open. She drew more stares as she approached the tent, but she did not care. She blew out the candle of her lantern before she set it down.

  Through the open tent flaps, she spotted the Beldam sitting on a large wooden chair, furs lining the ground beneath her feet. She looked even more thin and wiry than the last time Cinzia had seen her.

  “It seems you have upgraded your living conditions since leaving us,” Cinzia remarked. The furs, the chair upon which she sat, the quality of the tent, were all a bit much.

  “Hello, Priestess Cinzia. It is good to see you again.”

  Cinzia inclined her head, but before she could respond the Beldam continued.

  “I have only done what my followers have requested of me,” the Beldam said with a smile. “They insisted I live in comfort. I could not disagree with them; I am growing old, after all.”

  “Your followers?” Cinzia asked, raising one eyebrow.

  The Beldam’s smile faltered just slightly.

  “Madam, is this woman bothering you?” Two men, both tall and strong, approached the tent on either side of Cinzia.

  This woman? These men knew perfectly well who she was. Her scouts had reported no signs of the Beldam’s group becoming larger. But she said nothing. With the men on either side of her, she quite suddenly felt very small and alone. This was exactly why she had hoped to bring Knot, and now she regretted not simply asking him to come, even if he had refused her request to be her Goddessguard.

  “No, of course not,” the Beldam said, her smile once again wide and unbending. “Leave us, why don’t you? I imagine we have a thing or two to discuss.”

  “Very well.” They walked away together, although Cinzia could not imagine they went far.

  “Some of the people in the camp have taken it upon themselves to protect me,” the Beldam said, watching the two men go. “They insist upon it, though I think there is very little from which they could actually protect me.”

  “You still fear the Nine Daemons,” Cinzia said. She wanted to get to the crux of their conversation as quickly as possible.

  “Of course I do,” the Beldam snapped. “As should you.”

  “That is why I have come,” Cinzia said. “I wish to speak to you of them.”

  The Beldam laughed, a halting cackle. “You had your chance at that,” she said, “when I was still in your camp.”

  “I did not, actually.” Cinzia took a slow breath. She would not back down. She had the high ground here, and she would not allow this woman to twist the situation into something it was not. “You promised to share what you knew of the Nine, and you did not. Instead, you began holding your anti-tiellan meetings in secret. You absconded with hundreds of Jane’s followers before we even had a chance to speak again.”

  “Jane’s followers?” The Beldam sat back in her chair. “I thought they were Canta’s.”

  “Jane speaks for Canta,” Cinzia said. “Those who follow her follow the Goddess.” The dissonance between the words she spoke and her lack of conviction in them struck Cinzia with tangible force. The Beldam was right to criticize her for the slip.

  “You don’t really believe that, my dear,” the Beldam said with a smile. “You cannot hide your doubt from me.”

  “My doubts are not part of our current discussion, Beldam. I thank you to let them lie.”

  The Beldam pressed her lips together, but then nodded, once.

  “The meetings I held were not in violation of our agreement. You said yourself that I could speak whatever I wish when I’m alone. That was all I did, Priestess.”

  “But you shared nothing of the Nine Daemons with us,” Cinzia said.

  “You never sought after me to ask.”

  So you left the very protection you sought from us in the first place? Cinzia wanted to say. That was your solution?

  Instead, she took another breath. “I am here to ask you now,” she said.

  The Beldam hesitated, and for a moment Cinzia had hope that the woman might actually cooperate. Then, the Beldam frowned. “If you came here to talk about the Nine Daemons, you will only meet disappointment, m
y dear. That ship has sailed for us.”

  Cinzia clenched her jaw. She would not get angry. There was no need for that.

  “The more time passes before we do something about them, the more power they accrue. Is that not true?”

  The Beldam’s frown faded, her eyes boring holes into Cinzia. “Their gathering power is not something we can halt,” she said evenly. “I have accepted that, and so should you.”

  “One of their emissaries appeared in our camp a few days ago.”

  The Beldam leaned forward. “One of their emissaries?”

  “An Outsider,” Cinzia said. “If that word means anything to you. We were fortunate to deal with it quickly. If we had not been prepared, it could have killed dozens.”

  The Beldam leaned forward. “What did it look like? Did you see it yourself? How large was it?”

  Cinzia stood a bit taller. “I can tell you. I could even show you the body, if you wish. But we need to have a frank conversation about this.”

  The Beldam’s eyes narrowed, and she sat back in her chair.

  At least that isn’t a no, Cinzia thought.

  “Goddess rising,” the Beldam whispered. “It really is happening, then.”

  “Of course it’s happening,” Cinzia snapped. “If you had any real knowledge, you would understand that.”

  The Beldam waved a hand. “Knowledge does not equate with understanding.”

  Cinzia stalked forward, and before she was aware of her actions, she grabbed the Beldam by the collar, thrusting her face into the old woman’s. “You will tell me what you know, before I—”

  Someone yanked Cinzia backwards, sending her sprawling into the dirt outside the tent. Cinzia coughed, looking up to see one of the men who had approached earlier. Despite the fear swelling beneath her, she felt an overwhelming anger raging on the surface.

  She stumbled to her feet, ignoring the man, and looked back at the Beldam. “Come with me,” she pleaded. “See for your—”

  A stinging blow connected with one side of her face.

  Cinzia blinked, looking up in shock at the man who had struck her. Her vision was blurry, the man’s face out of focus. “Why would you—”