by Matt Wallace
“We do not want to advance their minds—we want to mold them.”
Mold.
There are several other words among the many thousands she has learned since studying at the Planning Cadre that Dyeawan imagines better fit Trowel’s intentions.
“The Undeclared as a group were fashioned to breed prejudice,” Trowel informs her. “Long before your time, experiments were conducted by this body concerning both the effect and uses of prejudice. Minority groups, and their exclusion, are necessary to galvanize a populace as well as placate them. They are also keys to redirecting the majority’s ire from the bureaucracy as necessary.”
“I understand,” Dyeawan says. “I once blamed a goat for breaking a window I hit with a rock.”
Beside her, Riko giggles before she can check herself.
The behavior of the two appears to frustrate Trowel enough to silence him for at least a moment.
“Prejudice creates discord,” Dyeawan says. “Discord creates civil disruption and violence.”
“There is no violence in the streets of the Capitol, or in any Crachian city,” Trowel says, haughtily dismissing the very notion.
“I’ve seen it. In the Bottoms.”
He waves a wrinkled hand. “Not meaning to diminish your… origins, as it were, the Bottoms and districts like it were created to house the baser concerns of our nature. Much like opening a window to clear out a smoke-filled room. It is where the people of the city can go to indulge in depravity and barbarism. It also gives our bureaucracy a place to store population overflow. Resources are not infinite. Our people live well because we regulate those resources.”
“People who matter, you mean,” Dyeawan says.
“People who produce,” he fires back.
“I am not arguing why the Bottoms are necessary,” Dyeawan reminds him, knowing that that debate will have to wait for a day much later in her tenure. “I am speaking of the Undeclared.”
“All of these mechanisms, my dear young one, were put in place for reasons beyond your understanding.”
“There is nothing you know that is beyond my understanding,” Dyeawan states plainly. “Or is ignorance as integral to your methods as prejudice?”
“I know a great deal that you do not.”
“Then why did Edger name me to succeed him and not you?”
That stifles Trowel, obviously cutting him deeply.
“Your ideas are intriguing,” Nia admits, probably to dilute the tension in the room. “There is, however, a process for ideas, a process you are unfamiliar with, Dyeawan, having skipped service in the Cadre’s other departments. Ideas must travel through the proper channels before they reach this body, to be tested and refined.”
“I never liked that part of the process as a builder, myself,” Riko says.
“But as a planner, surely you understand it, Riko.”
Dyeawan finds the way she keeps invoking the names of those to whom she speaks very grating.
She also finds it intensely annoying that Riko seems slightly charmed by it.
“Perhaps we should conclude for the day,” Dyeawan suggests, tightly.
Trowel is out of his chair by the time she has finished speaking. “I hope you found this session illuminating,” he says to her in passing, already walking away.
The old guard follows him readily, while the younger planners remain a moment longer, looking to both Dyeawan and Nia for guidance.
Dyeawan notices the division in their attentions, and it also concerns her.
“We’ll try again tomorrow,” she assures the others gently.
They part from the table with that, shuffling, disheartened, out of the room.
Nia finally favors Dyeawan with her gaze before she departs as well, but the older woman’s expression tells Dyeawan very little.
“I don’t think I like being a planner,” Riko says honestly after the rest of them are gone.
“I’m not certain I do either,” Dyeawan replies.
“Dinner, yeah? Take our minds away from this mess?”
Dyeawan dredges up a smile for her.
“I’ll meet you there,” she says.
Riko springs from her chair and practically bounds out of the room with that limitless energy of hers. It actually warms Dyeawan to watch her go.
Oisin lingers. When the table is empty save for Dyeawan, he finally saunters over to her.
“Your new regime seems to be going swimmingly,” he says.
Dyeawan is in no mood to feign civility as she is forced to do with the others. “I can do without your commentary.”
“I’m sure you can. I am here for our private briefing, on matters Edger always felt were best discussed away from the rest of the planners.”
“I understand.”
“We have implemented the street art campaign you devised,” he relates to her. “Which, admittedly, is an inspired way to combat the rumors and graffiti circulating throughout the Capitol concerning this Sparrow General and her rebels. Our agents in other cities are doing the same.”
That is only a preamble, Dyeawan knows, and not a particularly sensitive matter that couldn’t be discussed in front of the others. She waits for him to express his true concerns.
“Secondly, if we will no longer be… liquidating certain less functional elements of the populace—”
“We will not,” Dyeawan reaffirms, stiffly, the mere allusion to Edger’s former atrocities setting her on edge.
“I understand. However, it will create population control issues. Not immediately, but after a time.”
“Then we will have the cities reallocate resources. That is what they do.”
“Not gladly, and not when it is to benefit those who do not serve the greater good.”
“As they see it.”
“As we have trained them to see it.”
“What about the other task I appointed to you?” Dyeawan asks, changing the subject deliberately.
Oisin appears confused, but she sees that for the ruse it is. The Protectorate Ministry agent knows very well to what she is referring.
“Ah, yes—the question of your parentage. I have assigned the appropriate and necessary personnel. They will glean whatever information is available, but I would not hold out hope.”
“I do not have to hope. They will do as I’ve ordered them to do.”
Oisin frowns. “Such records are not kept in the Bottoms. The orphanages there are little more than larders for storing children.”
“I remember.”
“I’m sure. And our census only tabulates population numbers in such districts. We do not keep tabs on individuals.”
“We’re not important enough, I know,” she says impatiently.
“You are not one of them, not anymore, and you would do well to cease thinking of yourself as such. It might help you better assimilate in your new role.”
Dyeawan stares up at him coldly.
“I know what I am.”
“That is good to know. Is there anything else for the time being?”
She sighs. “What of the uprising in the east?”
“It may be quashed even as we speak,” Oisin says, sounding genuinely unconcerned.
“I do not want the hollow confidence spread around this table,” Dyeawan tells him. “I want the truth.”
“The rabble will never see the inside of the Tenth City. That is the truth. The pressing issue is containing stories about the rabble, and your notion in that vein should work well.”
Dyeawan nods, satisfied enough.
Oisin smiles emptily. “Good. I believe you and I are beginning to find our own rhythm.”
She chooses to remain silent until Oisin takes the hint and retreats.
“Good day, planner,” he bids her as he walks away.
Dyeawan is left alone at the long slab of the meeting table. She looks to each empty seat, finding something foreboding in the absence of the others.
“I’m not certain I do either,” she says to no one, repeat
ing the words she spoke to Riko.
SIEGE THE DAY
THE REBELLION IS MASSED HALF a mile outside the Tenth City gates, writhing as a single entity made of steel and leather and flesh.
Evie rides alongside Sirach, who has traded her shadowy camouflage for light leather armor that won’t inhibit her catlike movements. The two long, thin, half-moon-curved blades she favors are sheathed in a crisscross over her back like the outline of a scarab’s wings. Sirach also covers her face and skull in plated leather that is more mask and hood than helm.
Evie can’t help admiring her enemy-turned-lover’s odd sense of combat fashion, or more precisely how Sirach makes it work for her when the fighting is thick and bloody.
Their mounts carry them to the rear of the formation. The walls of the city loom large overhead in the distance.
“I’ve never been to the Tenth City,” Evie muses. “It’s strange to see a Crachian city with high walls around it, protected by gates.”
“You forget, it isn’t a Crachian city,” Sirach replies. “It’s a stolen kingdom. The last one Crache conquered. Its previous occupants knew very well what was coming. They built these walls to protect them from your people.”
“So it fell once,” Evie concludes.
Sirach smiles bitterly. “It pleases me you homed in so keenly on the point of my story.”
“I understood your story,” Evie says. “If I didn’t agree with the sentiment, I wouldn’t be leading an open revolt against the largest and most brutal nation in the known world.”
Sirach nods, still grinning. “Fair enough.”
“What was its name?” Evie asks her after the agitation has faded. “The kingdom that existed here before it became the Tenth City of Crache. Do you remember?”
“Of course I remember,” Sirach says, more somberly this time. “It was my people’s kingdom.”
Evie turns her head to regard the woman with surprise. In all their time together, Sirach has never divulged that information.
Sirach does not look at her, nor does she actually reveal the name of her ancestors’ lost kingdom.
They approach the vanguard of the attack. Their advanced forces are composed of soldiers and warriors from all three main rebel factions, each supplying an equal measure of their people.
The issue of the vanguard very nearly caused a riot in the rebel camp several nights before. When drawing up their plans for the siege, Mother Manai suggested the B’ors act as vanguard in the attack, her reasoning being the B’ors are the rebellion’s fiercest close-quarters fighters.
While Evie certainly agrees, she knew as soon as Mother said it that the B’ors would not take the suggestion as a compliment.
She was right.
The B’ors refused to be used as fodder for the very people who have frequently enslaved and very nearly extinguished their story from the world. The ex-Savages argued the Skrain for far too long had used them as fodder. The Sicclunans countered that both the ex-Savages and the B’ors, willingly or not, had helped the Skrain exterminate their nomadic assemblage for decades beyond count.
They all had legitimate points, and they all knew it. Voices grew louder and angrier until the assemblage was seconds from drawing weapons when Evie put forth that each faction would supply an equal number of soldiers to the vanguard, and that they would act as one force.
It was a reminder to Evie that her generalship consisted primarily of keeping her own army from abandoning their shared cause and slaughtering one another.
Spud-bar, the Savage Legion’s former armorist, is kneeling beside a repurposed wagon wheel, attending to its spoke. It is one of four wheels attached to a long rectangular platform fitted with handholds along each side. The platform is supporting a massive battering ram fashioned from a felled oak tree. The business end of the tree has been capped with steel forged to a spiraling tip for piercing the thick wooden gates of the city.
Evie gently guides her mount toward Spud-bar until she is peering down at the armorist from her saddle.
“Can I have the first ride on your new sled?” she asks them.
Spud-bar glances over their shoulder without humor, snorts with the derision of a hog sniffing rancid truffles, and returns to ministering to the spoke.
“I’ve done the best I can with what I have and the time I had to do it,” Spud-bar explains. “The Sicclunans didn’t bring any siege weapons.”
“We don’t have any siege weapons,” Sirach informs them, sidling up beside Evie on her own mount. “We rarely siege, and never whole cities. Our military focus has traditionally been on surviving outright extinction, you see.”
“That a fact, now?” Spud-bar replies noncommittally, and without looking back.
“I notice your former Legionnaires haven’t supplied the war effort much more than rusty steel and their own largely grooming-neglected bodies.”
The frown Evie levels at Sirach is as disapproving as a hurled dagger.
Spud-bar halts in their work. Evie watches the armorist’s head drop for several silent moments. Finally, they stand from the undercarriage of the mobile battering ram and turn to face Sirach’s mount.
“We didn’t bring any siege weapons because we are siege weapons,” the armorist ruefully reminds Sirach. “The Skrain maintained the artillery. We were just fleshy pieces.”
Sirach cocks her head with a vicious twist to her lips. “I hear ‘we’ and ‘us,’ but did you not stay behind with your wagon full of kitchen knives?”
Evie decides to step in before this discussion devolves into a real argument between the two.
“So what is the final tally?” she asks the armorist.
Spud-bar’s eyes linger menacingly on Sirach a moment longer, but in the end the armorist sighs, resigned, and turns their attention to Evie.
“Two battering rams, three dozen or so ladders, one complete siege tower that’s mostly sticks bound with jerked cat intestines, and another siege tower that’s half-finished, but makes for an excellent spot for a bit of bird watching.”
“Your sense of humor is improving, at least,” Evie compliments them with a wry grin.
Spud-bar snorts once more. “I’d rather our chances were improved.”
“All we have is chance, my larger comrade-in-arms,” Sirach says.
Spud-bar ignores her this time. “Fortunately for us, there isn’t a living Skrain who remembers defending a city under siege. Crachian cities aren’t readied for one, neither. They’re as unprepared to defend the city as we are to take it. They won’t have any catapults, and I doubt they’ll field that many archers, or at least ones worth a damn. Odds are fair they’ll hide behind the walls and just wait for rescue.”
“Considering we’ll have to defend the city as soon as we seize it,” Sirach says, “it’s probably a good thing we aren’t setting it ablaze with fiery catapults or knocking over the walls.”
“Sure, we’ll call it strategy,” Spud-bar replies, their voice dripping with irony. “That sounds much better.”
Sirach laughs at that, heartily, though she is the only one of them who does.
“It’s simple, then,” Evie calmly affirms. “We batter down the gates, fight our way inside, put down the Skrain and the Aegins, reseal the doors, and prepare ourselves for the rest of the Skrain to attack.”
“This tactical mastery is clearly why you are the general, General.”
“We go with what we’ve got,” Evie says, ignoring Sirach’s customary gentle mocking.
“That’s all any of us can do,” Spud-bar says.
Their words sound begrudging, and certainly unhappy, but Evie appreciates the armorist’s assent all the same.
“You need to see to your tribespeople before the war starts,” Spud-bar says to Evie. “They’ve broken formation to have some kind of row or something.”
Curious, Evie rears her mount and leaves them behind as she trots along the front line.
Several dozen yards away, she discovers that the B’ors warriors among the army’s
vanguard are gathered around their Storyteller, Yacatek; a revered leader among her people.
One of her primary responsibilities as a B’ors Storyteller is to record the history of their tribe, the most common and traditional way being on the blade of a dagger carved from stone. When the space on that blade has been exhausted, the Storyteller buries the dagger. It doesn’t matter where; the B’ors trust such implements will be unearthed in their own time, by whomever is meant to find them.
Yacatek cradles the leather-wrapped handle of such a dagger in one hand. She delicately chips away at the flat of the stone blade with a tiny arrowhead-shaped piece of rock pinched between her thumb and forefinger. The markings it leaves are impossibly small and intricate.
When she is finished, the Storyteller kisses the blade of the dagger before giving it to the nearest tribesman. Evie watches as each warrior presses their lips reverently to the flat of the inscribed blade before handing it with equal reverence to their next closest comrade.
By the time the story dagger has been returned to Yacatek, it has been kissed by a hundred lips.
The warriors slowly disperse to rejoin the loose formation of the vanguard. Yacatek remains behind, kneeling in the grass.
She returns the miniature chisel to a pouch on her belt, drawing in its stead a wooden scoop that looks like an unfinished cup. Yacatek uses it to dig in the ground at her feet, creating a shallow pit just deep enough to welcome her storied blade.
Evie urges her mount forward, watching the Storyteller bury the dagger.
“What is written on that one?” she inquires.
“Their names.”
“All that fits on one blade?”
Yacatek smiles wryly. “I write small.”
“Shouldn’t you wait to bury it until after the battle is over? It seems to me that’s a story without an ending.”
“It is not the story of a battle. It is the story of people.”
“Just as well. I imagine you’d need a fairly big dagger to record what’s about to happen here,” Evie remarks.
Yacatek slowly shakes her head.
“No?” Evie asks, genuinely surprised and confused by the woman’s response.
“Battles receive little storytelling. My people believe in passing on who we are and how we live, not how we die.”