Blood Requiem

by Christopher Husberg

  The Rangers after which they were named—the elite tiellan warriors of the Age of Marvels—could famously use any weapon on the battlefield, from bow to sword to spear to axe and beyond, were experts in battle strategy, and when they fought together, fought as one. Winter imagined Rangers as warriors like Knot, or Urstadt—not the rabble she saw before her.

  But they would have to do. They were all bound together, now. And whether Winter cared to admit it or not, she had pressed the tiellan hand in Cineste. She had all but forced them into this exodus by killing the humans at the Druid meeting. She would not abandon them now.

  “Do you think we stand a chance against them?” Winter asked Urstadt.

  Urstadt’s eyes were unreadable. “With us, yes,” she said.

  “I’ll take faltira at some point during the battle,” Winter said.

  “I expected as much.”

  “If I do, I’ll need to concentrate on what I’m doing. You will have full leadership of the Rangers.” Not that Winter would have much input anyway—she was no soldier—but it needed to be said.

  “I can do that, Winter.”

  Winter nodded. “Good.” Then, she turned to the Rangers.

  “We are going to march on the force ahead of us,” she said loudly. “They stand between us and freedom, the first real freedom we will ever know. They will not let us pass without a fight. They have enslaved us, oppressed us, and persecuted us, simply for being who we are. From this moment forward, we will no longer accept that.

  “They outnumber us. They are better armed, better trained, and they may be bigger and stronger than us. But they are human. They bleed, and die, just as all humans do. And like all humans, they wear their power on the outside.

  “You are tiellans. You may not look like you can stand up to them, but you can. Your power comes from within. Some of you saw what I did to those men who attacked us. That is only the first hint of what we can do. Remember that you are tiellans!”

  To Winter’s surprise, she actually elicited a cheer from the Rangers, and many of the tiellans behind them as well. Her eyes settled on one Ranger in particular, not unlike Lian as she remembered him. Thin, sinewy, handsome, with a smolder in his eyes.

  “You,” Winter said, pointing at the man. “With me.”

  The man looked surprised for a moment, but followed orders and walked quickly up to Winter’s side. He carried a staff in one hand, and a long dagger in his belt. The sight of his weapons in contrast with their opposition—armored in leather and chainmail, with swords, spears, and shields—made Winter flinch inwardly. She was under no illusions. She was the weapon that would make or break this battle for the tiellans. She was powerful, but she had never faced so many at once. And she had to be careful; she did not want to cause tiellan casualties.

  “What can I do for you, ma’am?” the man asked.

  “What is your name, Ranger?”

  “Selldor.”

  “Are you fast?”

  Selldor hesitated. “I am,” he said, “but I can also fight—”

  “Then you’ll do both,” Winter said. “You’ll carry my and Urstadt’s orders to the other Rangers, running up and down the line. Your duty is more important than any other, do you understand me?”

  Selldor bowed his head. “I do, Commander.”

  “Good. Stay close.”

  Winter turned, and led the march forward.

  “That was an effective speech,” Urstadt said beside her.

  “More effective than I thought it would be.” Winter squinted at the force ahead. “Can you tell how many there are?”

  “More than three hundred,” Urstadt said. “Not more than four.”

  Winter swore under her breath. More than twice their numbers; perhaps more than triple, since they’d sent Ghian’s force back. Winter and Urstadt’s Rangers were considerably ahead of the rest of the tiellan group; they did not want civilian casualties in the battle, but they had to keep them close to their defenders. Winter hoped it was a balance they could maintain.

  “Some of you are afraid,” Winter shouted over her shoulder as they marched. “That is all right. Take that fear, and use it. This battle is for our freedom. It is to show who we are, as a people.”

  Winter thrust her fist into the air. “It is to show our power!”

  They had reached the base of the low hill on which the City Watch was stationed. Fortunately, the slope was gradual, but even Winter knew enough to see the advantage it gave the Watch.

  For a moment, panic threatened her. The hard lump of fear had returned, settling in her gut. Everything was happening so quickly. She needed more time to think, to plan. Instead, she reached into her pouch, and—finally—slipped a frost crystal into her mouth.

  It was time to act.

  “You’ll lead the charge,” she told Urstadt. She took deep breaths, felt the effects of frost on her skin and in her veins. “I’ll be of no use on our front line, but I think I can take out theirs.”

  “Yes, Winter.”

  Winter nodded. There was only one thing left to do.

  “Charge!” The word grated from Winter’s lips, and Urstadt took off up the hill, glaive extended, the Rangers running behind her.

  At the same time, Winter extended her telenic tendra. Dozens of them snaked out of her, each seeking one of the City Watch soldiers at the top of the hill. She focused on their front line first, although exactly how many that was, she was not sure. The men had taken a defensive formation, each holding a large rectangular shield out in front of them, forming a solid wall through the cracks of which jutted dozens of spear-points.

  Winter seized the shields out of the hands of each of the men, and turned them on their owners. She saw a few surprised looks, mouths agape and eyes wide, staring at the shields levitating before them. Then Winter smashed each shield back down into the face of its owner.

  Using her tendra was not difficult, nor was snatching the shields from the stationary soldiers. Her tendra were far stronger than a normal human arm or grip. What was difficult, however, was splitting her attention so many ways. Fortunately, as she focused on one tendron, then two, then a dozen, the others seemed to instinctively follow suit.

  The front line of City Watchmen screamed as a wall of their own shields crushed them into the ground.

  Winter threw the shields into the rear ranks of the City Watch just as the Rangers crested the hill, trampling over the cowering first rank and smashing into the unsuspecting second rank of watchmen.

  She needed a better vantage point to keep controlling the battle, so she sprinted up the hill behind the Rangers, her tendra already seeking new targets.

  Tendra were strange things. The telenic variety could interact with inanimate objects and inanimate objects only; they could not touch or move any living thing. Acumenic tendra were the opposite; they had no effect on inanimate objects, but could penetrate the minds of living things. Winter had to be careful as she used her telenic tendra; she had to interact with the objects around the humans she fought against. That meant lifting men by their armor and clothing, or swiping the weapons from their hands.

  When she reached the hilltop, her tendra immediately went for the watchmen on horseback, currently splitting to either side of the tiellans, aiming for a flank attack. More than four dozen tendra twisted away from Winter, each snatching a lance or sword from the Watch’s cavalry. Once again, Winter turned the soldiers’ own weapons against them. She knew each strike wasn’t completely effective—some barely penetrated chain, others glanced away and slid into thin air, and still others simply got lost as Winter tried to manage so many tendra at once. But her onslaught worked; the Watch’s cavalry formations crumbled before her eyes.

  Hope cracked upwards through the hard lump of fear in Winter’s gut. With another burst of energy, Winter sent as many tendra as she could muster into the second wave of cavalry, knocking them all from their horses. Men fell to the ground as horses panicked, some trampling the men who’d been riding them not secon
ds before.

  Now, at least, the ground was even. Winter swiped the few watchmen that remained on horseback with her tendra easily. Hopefully Urstadt could manage the Rangers through the rest of the battle.

  * * *

  Urstadt planted her feet and thrust her glaive up into the ribs of an oncoming watchman. The man screamed, spattering Urstadt with blood, and at the last second Urstadt twisted out of the way, yanking her glaive with her. The man collapsed to one side, writhing in pain.

  Urstadt rammed her glaive into the man’s chest, then turned to take stock of the battle.

  Winter had decimated the entire force’s cavalry. Urstadt could not imagine how the girl had done it. She had seen Winter’s powers, watched personally as Winter killed Lord Hirman Luce in the middle of a Ruling Council meeting, and as the girl had fought her former lord, Daval Amok—a man imbued with the power of a Daemon—and won.

  But Urstadt had never seen anything like this.

  Winter flattened wave after wave of the watchmen. The attacks weren’t always efficient, and never elegant, but they were consistent and inescapable as the tide. Virtually all that remained of the City Watch was a portion of their infantry and unhorsed cavalry.

  More than two hundred watchmen remained, but that was significantly better than the odds had been only moments ago.

  “Hold the line!” Urstadt shouted at the tiellan men around her. In the distance, she heard Selldor repeating the order, running up and down the line to spread the word.

  These tiellans were beginners, some too old and others too young, all wholly unfamiliar with the business of killing. But they rallied to her nonetheless, and so far had not given any ground to the City Watch. Urstadt knew the power a strong leader could grant her soldiers, and fought like Oblivion to provide that for the tiellans.

  Another human soldier charged the tiellan fighting next to Urstadt, but she thrust her glaive up into the man’s face before he closed the gap. The man slumped into her weapon, gray matter seeping down the blade and onto the pole. Urstadt did not have time to wipe the gore before advancing, shoulder to shoulder with the tiellans next to her, on what remained of the City Watch line.

  Tiellan after tiellan around Urstadt fell to the City Watch blades, but the training these men had undertaken had not been for nothing. If the soldiers penetrated their front line too deeply, or got around enough to flank or surround, the Rangers would have a much more difficult time of things. The left tiellan flank had given the City Watch a few rods at the beginning of the battle, but now held its own, and the right flank had actually gained ground, as the center, led by Urstadt, was now doing.

  For now, they were doing enough.

  Urstadt dodged the spear thrust of an oncoming soldier. She knocked the weapon aside and charged forward, ramming her blade into the man’s gut. She stepped back, parrying another attack, twisting around to kick another watchman in the back who’d been fighting the tiellan man next to Urstadt. The watchman fell and the tiellan man pounced, stabbing downward with a spear.

  Something whirred above Urstadt’s head, and another oncoming watchman fell, impaled by a javelin. The weapon had moved with far too much force to have been thrown by a man.

  Urstadt looked over her shoulder and caught a glance of Winter, standing still about a dozen paces behind the front line. The girl needed to do something soon to tip the battle in their favor.

  As if in response to Urstadt’s thoughts, suddenly a huge group of City Watch soldiers—at least four dozen; Urstadt could not count them quickly enough—rose quickly into the air, squirming and screaming, limbs flailing. There was a moment’s hesitation where the entire battlefield paused, looking up, watching the men writhe as they rose into the air. They moved so high so quickly that they were barely visible when Winter finally dropped them. The men fell, screaming, back to the ground. She must have shifted their position, as most of them fell behind the City Watch’s force. A horrible plethora of sound followed; a crunch here, a smack there, a crash in the distance, with screams of terrified men overarching it all. A knot in Urstadt’s stomach tightened. She had never enjoyed heights, and did not envy the fate of these men.

  When all the bodies had fallen, the watchmen turned back to the Rangers. A few of them raised their weapons, faces pale, but then the call came out from behind them.

  “Retreat!”

  Immediately, the watchmen turned and ran, fleeing the battlefield, leaving the Rangers amongst the dead.

  * * *

  A ragged cheer rose from the Rangers as the Cinestean City Watch retreated.

  “We should go after them!” one of the tiellans shouted, looking back at Winter. “Make sure they never forget what happened here!”

  A few other tiellan voices rose in affirmation, but for the most part, the Rangers were silent. Pale faces, weapons held in trembling hands or dropped to the ground completely, and the stink of shit on the battlefield told Winter all she needed to know. A few of the tiellans collapsed, sobbing, the moment the watchmen began their retreat.

  “Hold your ground,” Winter shouted, her voice hoarse. They were in no shape to chase after the watchmen.

  “Hold your ground,” she repeated, more softly.

  She was in no position to pursue the watchmen.

  It had been a very long time since she had accessed that much power via frost. She felt the chill indicating the drug’s waning effect, and while she could take another crystal, it would not be a good idea. Kali had told her that taking too much faltira could burn out a psimancer’s power. Winter had already risked that once, in Izet—the last time she had used this much power, and more—but, in the moment, she’d thought it was her only option.

  That was not the case today. In fact, if anything, Winter wanted to live if only to take more frost, to use more power, another day.

  Urstadt approached, splattered with red, glaive bloody and dripping. The warrior looked like something out of legend, or nightmare; Winter could not decide which. Looking down at herself, Winter appeared no different than when the battle began. No blood on her clothes, her hands, anywhere near her at all.

  “What are your orders?” Urstadt asked.

  You should give the orders, Winter wanted to say. Exhaustion threatened to overwhelm her. But, instead, Winter took a deep breath before responding. “We take all the weapons and armor we can from the fallen,” she said, looking out over the field. The dead and dying were numerous; they might be able to provide better weaponry for the entire Ranger force that remained. Goddess knew such a thing was needed. “Round up any remaining horses we can find, too. I have a feeling we’ll need them in the future.”

  “As do I.” Urstadt nodded, and Winter felt a thrill that the woman approved of her orders.

  “I’ll inform the Druids of our victory,” Winter said. “And then, we will move west. To Adimora.”

  14

  Odenite camp, outside Kirlan

  CINZIA LOOKED DOWN AT the pages of the Codex of Elwene, open on her lap. She took a moment to marvel at them, at the crimson shimmer that danced across the thin metal pages, at the characters that were incomprehensible to her until she looked at them as a whole.

  It had been too long since Jane and Cinzia had sat down together to work on their translation. They were nearly through the book now, just beginning the last section of the Codex, the words of Elwene—a coda that followed the Nine Scriptures already translated, and the only part of the text not written by one of Canta’s original Nine Disciples.

  “She lived before Canta?” Jane asked, turning to look at Cinzia. Cinzia sat cross-legged on her cot in their tent, while Jane sat at the small writing desk they had brought with them, with paper, quill, and ink at hand.

  “She says she lived during the Age of Marvels, but that makes no sense. She also says she compiled the writings of the other Disciples, even abridged some of them. But Canta was not born physically into the Sfaera until the middle of the Age of Reification, and she did not call her Disciples until she
was twenty-two years old.”

  “Perhaps Elwene lived a very long life,” Jane suggested. “Long enough to abridge the Disciples’ writings.”

  Cinzia laughed softly. “You have forgotten your history lessons, Jane.” Cinzia could not blame her. She probably would have as well, if they had not been reiterated time and time again during her time at the seminary. “The Age of Reification was one thousand and one years long, and Canta was born in the exact middle of that age, in the Zeroth Year. That means the Age of Marvels ended five hundred years before Canta was born, before she called her Disciples. Elwene would have been more than five hundred years old when she assembled the Codex.”

  Jane stood up. Her head nearly touched the roof of their tent, despite it being one of the larger tents in the camp.

  “Canta has given us unusual powers at times,” Jane said. “Healing, strength, inhuman reflexes. Perhaps she empowered Elwene to live an abnormally long life.” She didn’t hide the skepticism in her voice.

  “Strength, inhuman reflexes, abnormally long life,” Cinzia mused with a slight smile. “Perhaps Elwene was a vampire.”

  She had made the suggestion in jest, but Jane did not seem to take it that way.

  “Canta’s ways can be peculiar,” Jane said, nodding. “It would not be the first time Canta used such methods.”

  Cinzia’s eyebrows shot up. “It would not be the first time Canta used a vampire? What are you talking about, Jane?”

  “It was your suggestion,” Jane said defensively. “Do you have a better one?”

  “Perhaps. There is a theory.” Cinzia ran her hand along the metal pages of the open Codex—she loved the feel of the cool metal on her fingers; it never felt warm, no matter the temperature or how long she had been holding it. “A few in the Ministry believe the Disciples spoke in allegory.”

  Jane looked at Cinzia flatly, her eyes hooded. “Cinzi, I know the Disciples spoke in parables. That is not news.”

  “I don’t mean that they just used parables on occasion; I mean these few believe the Disciples spoke entirely in allegory, that perhaps most of what they wrote is fiction.”