Pluvius charged up the slope toward Anatoli, who was surrounded by a dozen mounted men.
But he was too late.
Like a clarion call in the heart of a deep fog, Anatoli’s voice rose above the din of war.
Pluvius had read stories about the Lays of Night... He’d been told about it by the masters... But to hear one! It raked at his insides, pulled at him. He stumbled and fell to his knees, clutched at his chest. Much of him wanted to let go of this life, and even though there was no one higher in his life than Taleneo, he knew fear.
A loud cry washed over him from the top of the hill. The Ambarri, knowing what would happen if they remained idle, had burst forth from the gates and were rushing toward Anatoli.
The sight of their desperation wrenched Pluvius from his fugue.
He pulled himself off the ground and ran toward Anatoli.
“Stop, Anatoli!” he cried. “They are innocent souls!”
Anatoli’s song faltered.
Régusto was sitting on his stallion on the far side of Anatoli, and he turned when the song changed its tone. And then he spied Pluvius.
He drew his sword and then his horse galloped over. “You were warned,” Régusto said as he pulled short.
“How can you claim to be one with Taleneo when you would do this?” asked Pluvius.
Régusto stared down at Pluvius, his face angry. “Taleneo does this all the time. Do you think everyone who dies away from your temples loses their way?”
“Unless Taleneo wills them up.”
Anatoli’s voice regained its clarity.
Régusto smiled. “Well, he’s calling them now, young soprano.” He raised his sword and kicked his horse forward.
“Stop, Régusto!” It was Napo, riding his bay mare. He pulled up in front of Pluvius, raising both hands. “Leave the boy alone.”
“Don’t think to order me, priest, on the field or off.”
“It’s done,” Napo said. He turned in his saddle and pointed up the hill. “See for yourself.”
Pluvius hadn’t realized, but the shouting had largely ceased. Near the center of the field, where the heaviest fighting had been, the Molbredan horses began bucking and neighing. Many galloped away, their heads shaking, their eyes impossibly wide. Ambarran men fell to their knees, many clutching their chest or beating themselves about the ears or head.
And then, from the form of a fallen Ambarran warrior, the first of them rose—a shining pinpoint of light drifting up from his mortal form and into the sky. A spectrum, pulled from the body of a man unprotected by the sacrament of Taleneo. It immediately began to wander like a fly looking for rotted meat in which to spawn.
Another rose, and another, and soon the entire battlefield glittered with the souls of the fallen Ambarran warriors.
Despite the state of their horses, the Molbredan cavalry cheered.
But Pluvius... Pluvius fell to his knees and cried.
How many would be lost here? How many more in Régusto’s march to the south?
“Please, My Lord, let him be,” Napo said. “What’s done is done.”
The words seemed to appease Régusto, for he sheathed his sword and pulled his horse around without another word.
But for Pluvius, Napo’s words had triggered his memory. The anchor. The stolen artifact from the Temple of Oltomaño. The Ambarri had stolen it, and without a doubt it would now be lying unguarded in the fort at the top of the hill.
“Napo, please, lend me your horse.”
“Pluvius, you have to leave.”
“The anchor, Napo! The anchor! Let these souls feel the touch of Taleneo.” These men had not taken sacrament, but with the anchor so close, many would hear the call. Many would be saved.
It took several moments, but Napo nodded and galloped to his side. He swooped Pluvius up in his arms and wrestled him into the saddle before him.
“We don’t have much time, boy.”
They rode, skirting Régusto’s forces and heading for the open gates of the fort. In the courtyard they found a dozen carts stacked high with food and supplies and other sundry items. Among them, however, was a wooden casket as tall as a man.
Napo helped Pluvius to pry the nails off of the lid and pull away the mounds of hay within. And there, nestled like a newborn babe, was his anchor, a five-foot-tall hunk of white copper shaped vaguely like the head of a spear, its polished surface gleaming orange under the light of the fading sun.
They hauled the crate backward off the wagon and set it upright. Together, for the anchor was extremely heavy, they maneuvered it out of the crate and into the center of the courtyard. Pluvius began wiping its surfaces clean, but Napo grabbed his wrist.
“Enough. It’s time to sing.”
Pluvius stepped back. He turned so he could face the battlefield, much of which was visible through the open gates.
He sang, as he had in Oltomaño nearly every morning and every evening, and though his surroundings and his life had changed so much since then, he felt immediately at home. The song felt deeper here, more filled with meaning, like a clear black pool he’d only now discovered the true depths of.
A few of Régusto’s cavalry rode toward the gates. Then more. And soon, several dozen waited just outside the palisade. Many of them dismounted. All of them stared upward at the lights responding to the sound of Pluvius’s voice. These hardened men of war bowed their heads and kissed their clenched fists and whispered words of prayer while more and more of the spectra were drawn by the anchor of Taleneo.
Régusto rode through the group on his tall stallion, with Anatoli close behind on a horse of his own. He continued into the courtyard, where for some reason his men did not enter. He stopped short of the anchor, short of the ever-growing pillar of souls, and waited. Anatoli looked on stiffly, perhaps ashamed at what he had done.
Pluvius continued to sing, and he didn’t stop until it was clear that all the spectra that could be saved were flying high above him.
Régusto smoothed his mustache down and regarded Pluvius with a calculated expression. “You know this is Molbredan land now.”
“I don’t care if it’s Syprian, Molbredan, or Ambarran.” Pluvius waved toward the courtyard behind him. “I only ask for use of the temple. The temple I will build.”
Régusto breathed deeply and stared upward again. “I never knew they were so bright.” When his eyes met Pluvius’s once more, they had softened. “You may have your temple, soprano.”
And with that he pulled the reins of his horse over and urged his mount toward the barracks.
But Pluvius didn’t care about Régusto anymore. He turned to Anatoli and forced as much pleading into his voice as he could. “Please, Toli. Will you stay?”
But the boy Pluvius thought he knew merely pulled at his reins and clucked at his horse and followed Régusto.
Napo told Pluvius the next morning he would like to remain and help build the new temple. Pluvius immediately accepted his offer. Régusto announced that a token force would be left behind to wait for the reinforcements from Molbredo; the rest of the men would head south.
Anatoli, obviously nervous, walked up to Pluvius as he sang to reinforce the strength of the fledgling pillar. When Pluvius was done, Anatoli cleared his throat. “I admire what you’re doing.”
“You could do so much more than that,” Pluvius replied. “You could help. I need you.”
Anatoli attempted to smile. “There’s work to be done.”
“Isn’t your thirst for blood slaked?”
“I don’t thirst for blood, Pluvius. I’m hoping to end this war. This was but a small forward force. The Ambarri are still murdering in the south, killing as cruelly as they did in Oltomaño. And when the Ambarri leave, the Barren Kingdoms will move in to feast upon the scraps.”
Pluvius shook his head. “When are you going to stop worrying so much about this world, Anatoli? It isn’t the one that counts.”
Then Anatoli did smile. “I’m not so sure I agree.” And with that he
turned, mounted his horse, and rode out of the courtyard.
Pluvius tore his gaze away from his friend, from his feelings of loss, and instead looked up to the pillar.
And then took up his song anew.
Unearthed
High in the Bryndlholt Forest, Eiren joined the seven other children as they gathered, laughing, on the wooden walkway around the great citadel tree. They were all breathing heavily. And no wonder. The game they’d been playing—slay the wyrm—had been hotly contested, and for once the villagers had won. Sigrid was the last to arrive on the walkway. She came floating in, her wingcloak spread wide, the lynx skin stretched taut between her arms and legs, catching the air and allowing her to curl easily in and swoop to a stop just short of the others.
Eiren wished she could fly as well as Sigrid. With the fur around her shoulders and the tops of her boots and fingerless gloves, she even looked like a lynx, powerful and graceful and strikingly pretty. One day Eiren would be like her. One day…
In one hand Sigrid held a red leather pouch—the heart of the wyrm. She’d won the last match, a thing she did with frightening frequency, which meant that she would hold the heart of the wyrm to start the next game.
Lightning arced across the sky as a misty rain began to sift down from the canopy above. Eiren was worried over it, and Sigrid should have been, but she was already smiling and tossing the heart lightly into the air. “One more?”
Sigrid was eleven, nearly twelve, and the eldest among those gathered. Eiren was only eight, and though she didn’t wish to look small in front of Sigrid, she still admitted, “My grandper says I need to be home for supper.”
She looked south toward their village of Hrindegaard. They were far enough away that they could see neither the outermost walkways that would lead them home nor the lanterns that lit the night to fend off the white wyrms and other creatures that plagued the dark. “Maybe we could race back to the village…”
“We will.” Sigrid bowed down so she was closer to Eiren’s height. “Right after the game, so we’re back quicker.”
“Maybe we could play a little closer. Grandper says—”
“Don’t be such a baby,” Caudlyn said, who was one year younger than Eiren.
“Quash it,” Sigrid said, giving her little brother a shove. “We’ll be back before your grandper misses you.” Eiren knew they wouldn’t, and she was about to say so when Sigrid cut her off. “Don’t you work hard, Eiren, in your grandper’s shop?”
Eiren scowled. “Of course I do.”
“That’s right,” Sigrid went on. “We all do. That’s why we haven’t played for two months. And you were given leave to play until sunset, weren’t you?”
Eiren looked up, knowing sunset would soon come, but she still nodded.
“Then let’s play until we have to go back, and not any sooner!”
They were all staring at her. Grandper would need her to help with the food, but she didn’t want to let anyone down, so she nodded to Sigrid, vowing to make the game end quickly by killing the wyrm herself.
Sigrid’s wry smile widened as the misty rain caught in her blonde hair, especially the wisps that had slipped free of her long braid. “Ready?” Everyone nodded. Sigrid put her face to the trunk. “Go!”
And the children scattered.
As Sigrid began slowly counting, “One, two, three,” her voice took on the timbre of one of the elder wyrms. Eiren had never seen one, much less heard one speak, but she imagined they sounded very much like the rumbly voice Sigrid was using now. They only had until nine, and it was important to get as far away as possible—or to hide especially well—before Sigrid started coming after them.
Eiren sprinted along the massive bough that reached out from the trunk of the citadel where Sigrid was counting. Caudlyn was ahead of her, and Irik was ahead of Caudlyn. Irik leapt into open air. The skin of his brown wingcloak flapped behind him, but when he snapped his arms and legs out, the skin went taut—whump—and he began to soar downward in a graceful arc between the citadels. Irik was especially good not only at soaring without wasting energy but using the trees to his advantage.
Eiren watched as he slipped around the trunk of another citadel and was lost from sight. Being a good climber, she didn’t like to jump so soon. She could often find a place to hide during the crucial opening moments of the game, and even if she was spotted, the wyrm would need to climb in order to get her, and most couldn’t keep up with her.
“Four, five!” Sigrid called.
Caudlyn leapt next. Unlike Irik, his cloak—a cast-off from Sigrid too large for his slight frame—flapped noisily behind him. He glided toward the second canopy below. Eiren should have watched him—it was important to know where everyone was—but she didn’t. She had a different plan. She continued on until the bough joined with another tree. Unlike the sparse trees in the mountains to the northeast, the trees of the Bryndlholt supported one another. The boughs reached out, twisting tightly around one another or the trunks of neighboring trees, often becoming part of the other tree. It created one massive, interconnected structure that the elders said made them aware of one another. These are not a collection of individual trees, Old Kaisa had once told her. They are one, and when one dies, they all feel it, and so it is with birth.
“Six, seven!” called Sigrid.
Eiren leapt against the trunk of the citadel. The steel claws worked into the thick leather gloves she wore and along the insides of her ankles and knees gave her purchase. The citadel’s rich brown bark was filled with crevices. It was easy to hold onto as long as you kept your wits about you. And if you slipped and fell, you simply snapped your lynx skin tight and glided to the nearest tree.
Eiren had just made it around the far side of the trunk when she heard Sigrid call, “Eight!” Sigrid took one final, exaggerated pause. “Nine!” she shouted. “Ready or not, I’ve come to eat you!”
Eiren climbed swiftly and silently, passing another bough. They’d played nearly the entire afternoon, so her arms were already tiring and her breath was coming heavy. She slipped inside an old, abandoned lynx set. And just in time! Sigrid was swooping through the trees down below, glancing above and below and around her as she went. Eiren ducked inside, counted to five, then scanned the holt. Sigrid was well away now, arcing between two trees—the Drunkards, they were called, trees that leaned toward one another like men walking home after a night spent spilling too many tankards down their throats.
As Eiren slipped back out and continued to climb, she heard Trind cry out, “I’ve been eaten!”, bellowing loudly enough for everyone to hear. Eiren clawed her way higher, slipping back around the far side of the trunk so Sigrid and Trind wouldn’t see her. Now that Trind had been eaten, she was on Sigrid’s side. They’d need only one more, and then the game would truly begin.
It came a moment later, just as Eiren reached the branch she’d been climbing toward.
“I’ve been eaten!” Caudlyn called.
He’d most likely shown himself, or made his capture so easy he might as well have done. He liked Sigrid too much and always wanted to be on her team. Eiren liked Sigrid too, of course, but she refused to give in like that.
Now that the wyrm had three, one of them would be given the heart. To whom it would be given was part of the strategy. The one given the heart had to wear it openly so that everyone else—the villagers—could see it. The trick now was for the villagers to touch the one wearing the heart, thereby slaying the wyrm, before being caught by the other parts of the wyrm, thereby being eaten and making the wyrm longer and more deadly.
Eiren was well above the others now, which was exactly what she wanted. She was hoping for a quick kill. As the rain came harder, she sprinted along the length of the branch. She used the bend at the tapered end to catapult herself into the air, then snapped her wingcloak into place and soared out toward the place from which Caudlyn had called out his death.
She soared so that she flew just abreast of the nearest citadel’s trunk. T
hen, in a move honed over her years soaring through the Bryndlholt, she reached out, the cat claws worked into her fingerless leather gloves catching the bark and swinging her body against the trunk. Lightning arced, casting the holt in ghostly white as the claws rasped along the bark, some of it scattering like seeds and floating downward toward the middle canopy. Thunder rumbled a moment later, rattling her skin.
She didn’t want to soar too far—doing so would leave her open to being spotted. She might have been spotted anyway, but the key was to keep on the move. Soaring, climbing, soaring, climbing, then moving along bough or branch until she had a clear path to the unsuspecting heart of the wyrm.
Off in the forest, Viveka called out in disgust, “I’ve been eaten!” Like Eiren, Viveka hated being eaten by the wyrm, but Caudlyn and Trind were already starting to whoop, sensing that momentum was with them now that Sigrid and Viveka—the two best players—were on their side.
It was always strange seeing the change in the players. The snake could never win the game—one could only win by remaining a villager and slaying the wyrm, like Sigrid had in the last game—but that didn’t stop those who were eaten by the wyrm from hollering and clapping if they managed to slay all the villagers. Not Eiren, though. She hated how the others reveled in devouring villagers once they became part of the wyrm. When Eiren was devoured, she played as she was supposed to—chasing villagers and catching them if she could—but she secretly rooted for the remaining villagers to win.
“I’ve been eaten,” she heard Henrik call.
Five already. Five for the wyrm to only four for the villagers. It was rare for the villagers to win if the wyrm reached a strength of six. Not unheard of—Sigrid had just done it in their last game—but it was difficult to not only find the heart of the wyrm but to reach them before the others tagged you.
As the rain poured harder and thunder echoed through the holt, Eiren leapt and arced past two trees to land on a thick branch, this one close to where Henrik had been killed.
Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten & Other Stories Page 19