The Dew of Flesh

by Gregory Ashe

  Chapter 4

  Abass ran to the edge of the balcony. He reached out and wrapped his hand around a rope hidden by the elaborate stone fluting on the front of the Sleeping Palace. With one leap he cleared the edge of the balcony and fell toward the ground.

  He barely felt the warm air whip past him. The ground raced up, but Abass paid it no attention. He fell quickly, but his mind raced even faster, fear spurring his thoughts. The harvest cart. At his parents’ house. At Isola’s house.

  As he neared the end of the rope, Abass pushed off a broad, fluted section of stone and launched himself onto the stone sill of another massive window. The impact shook his teeth, but he didn’t stop to reorient himself. He grabbed the next rope, this one anchored and hidden just above the large opening in the stone, and let himself fall again.

  The intricate carvings that covered the Sleeping Palaces—in some places the sculptures were twice as tall as a man, in others the size of a pin—whizzed past him in a blur of dark and light. Pain shot up his leg as Abass struck the head of a stone deksu, the giant bird larger than life, and pushed himself away. He fell again, the pain pushed back by fear.

  A harvest cart meant that someone in his family—perhaps all of them—had been chosen for the next High Harvest. And that bastard Qatal didn’t do anything to stop them, Abass thought. Fury mounted to mingle with fear. He’ll let them take them—all of them, if it means advancing his Father-taken career.

  Abass almost missed the next window. He let the rope fly from his hands, wincing at the flare of pain as it tore the skin from his palms, and landed hard on his stomach. Something cracked, and pain blossomed in his chest. He could taste blood in his mouth where he had bitten his tongue. Tair bless me, they’re going to take my family.

  Somehow he was on his feet, although it hurt him to stand. His leg burned and pounded in time with his ribs. Abass grabbed the last rope, looped around the base of the statue of a man with arms outstretched. Pleading with the tair, perhaps. It did not matter. Abass launched himself into the air one more time. His head pounded, and everything spun around him.

  He had to go more slowly this time, so he moved from statue to statue, not caring as carved arms and horns broke away from the ancient stonework. He jumped the last ten feet. When he hit the ground, he fell as pain lanced through his leg.

  It didn’t matter. Abass pushed himself up and staggered toward the house. Everything was normal, too normal. A pair of stout women in matching brown wool dresses, wicker baskets on their backs, stood and stared at him, the man who had just fallen from a Sleeping Palace. Two blond boys, almost babes, played on the narrow patch of grass that ran down the center of the dirt road while an older girl dressed a doll. The air was full of the sounds of life—the distant bustle of the market, the thud of a horse’s hooves on dirt and creak of wagon wheels, laughter. The air was warm with the blessing of the tair, and the sun shone in a clear blue sky.

  No screams. None of the terror and bloodlust that accompanied a street harvest. Only the furious panting of Abass’s heart in time with his wounds and his fear. He ran as best he could with the pain in his leg and chest.

  The door to the house opened. Two blond men wearing the green silk robes of eses came out first. Just two, Abass thought. Perhaps it was just a visit. Foolishness.

  Then he saw Isola.

  Even from the distance, he could see the fear in her face. Green eyes wide. Lower lip trembling. The way she had looked as a child, when his knife found her chest. A look of surprise threatening to tumble into realization. Oh tair help me, Abass prayed. Not her.

  The green silk ribbon around her hands confirmed it. Two more eses emerged, blond like the first pair, green robes shimmering in the sunlight. An honor escort. The privilege of the High Harvest. And then Qatal came out of the house.

  Hair so blond that it shone white in the sunlight, the man was tall, strong, his green robes bearing the two brown triangles of a lap-esis. One of the most powerful eses—the warrior-priests who ruled in the tair’s name. The smile on Qatal’s face told Abass everything he needed to know.

  Abass was too slow. They were loading her up in the cart, oblivious to his approach. That look of surprise still hovered on her face, as though incapable of completing its journey into terror. Then the tall wooden slats blocked her green eyes from Abass’s view. Tair, please, not her. I’ve already failed her once.

  He slammed into the first esis. The man flew backward, crashing into the esis behind him and sending both of them to the ground in a jumble. Abass moved in a frenzy. His knife was forgotten, long years of surviving on the streets forgotten. Whatever instinct told him to run, to save himself, was buried as guilt and fear broke their holding walls.

  The other two guards had time to prepare, though, and moved to meet him. He paid them no heed. From the corner of his eyes, Abass saw the smile fade from Qatal’s face, but it was a secondary thought. His attention was fixed on the cart. On Isola. She was saying something, but it was impossibly distant. Abass thought he could hear other people screaming.

  He ripped at the strap holding the gate of the cart shut, but the leather was tied shut. The gate snapped back into place. Hands pulled at him, and Abass’s fingers slipped from the gate.

  Abass threw his head back and felt it catch one of the men in the face, and he twisted and threw an elbow. It caught the second man in the chest. He doubled over, the breath whooshing from his lungs. With one kick, Abass freed himself from the esis and reached for the strap.

  Isola’s eyes met his through the slats. Wide. The way she had looked at him in the alley that afternoon. Her mouth was moving. One tear had trickled down her cheek to hang at the corner of her lips.

  He had the strap and fumbled at the knot. Somehow he got it undone, even with his hands shaking so that he could barely hold the leather, and the gate was open. Isola stepped back from him, her face crumbling as fear took hold.

  Something hit Abass hard in the ribs, where he had hurt himself falling. The pain sent blackness darting in front of him. He found himself on the ground and realized he was screaming. Someone was kneeling on top of him, but his vision was blurry.

  Another blow caught him on the chin, and Abass felt his neck crack as his cheek hit the dirt road. He couldn’t move, couldn’t think.

  From somewhere distant, he heard Qatal’s voice. The voice he hated more than anything in the world.

  “Put him in the cart, but take them to different pits.”

  Before he fell into the dizzy spiral of darkness that washed up toward him, Abass had a single thought. Get away, Scribe.