by Matt Wallace
At that moment, Char comes scampering into the room, waving a large white lily they allowed her to pick in the Gen Circus garden.
Lexi watches the stern, knowing expression vanish from Shaheen’s face, replaced by a warm smile as she turns her head to address her daughter. “Go up to your room, my little mouse,” she says, speaking softly. “It’s your bedtime. I’ll come tuck you in soon.”
Char stops waving her flower. She takes in the scene of the two of them there on the floor, blinking with wide, innocent eyes.
“Go on, Char,” her mother repeats, more firmly this time.
The little girl hesitates a moment longer, and then turns around and runs out of the room. Shaheen returns her gaze to Lexi, letting her surprisingly strong hands slip from around her arms.
Her expression has not totally transformed back to that severe, unfamiliar visage. It’s somewhere between the two; the mother who tends to her child with gentility and warmth, and the assertive young woman who just assured Lexi they can help.
“Who are you?” Lexi asks her.
Without saying a word, Shaheen bends forward and contorts her body, slipping the wrap gifted to her by Lexi from her shoulder and down her arm.
There is a small tattoo inked in pale silver on Shaheen’s back. It is an emblem all too familiar to Lexi.
Shaheen, the girl she found starving and ragged in a forgotten alley, is marked by an eagle’s eye, the symbol of the Protectorate Ministry.
THE INEVITABLE
THE LONGHOUSE HAS A PERFECTLY thatched roof and large windows at both ends to allow the breeze to sweep through its surprisingly spacious confines.
“What do you do in the storm season?” Taru asks their host.
Captain Staz of the Black Turtle reclines in what looks like a much better crafted version of the chair occupied by the fisherman Taru met on the beach. The diminutive woman smokes a pipe that looks more like a seashell with one end shaped into a stem. She inhales from its mouth and blows a slightly acrid-smelling smoke into the breeze.
“We sew shutters from soil and grass, held together with woven nets, and seed the soil. The rains water them as they pour. By the time storm season has passed the shutters have all sprouted crops. We plant them in our gardens and harvest supper.”
Taru is impressed.
“That is… quite brilliant.”
“The island teaches you to be industrious.”
Taru’s large frame is testing the limits of a chair similar to the captain’s, both of them arranged around a short table set upon a rug that feels like dry rice under Taru’s bare feet. Since being taken to Staz and welcomed into her home, Taru has been given water and plied with several bowls of a steaming hot stew of the freshest fish from the island’s bay, cooked in a rich and heady broth the color of arterial blood.
“Would you like more to eat?” the captain asks after Taru has finished their third bowl.
“No, thank you. It was delicious.”
“An old family recipe. To Islanders those are as sacred as anything else we have.”
“I can see why.”
Staz examines Taru curiously. “You do not seem at ease, my friend. You are safe here, you know. I know that by pact with your people we are supposed to expel any Crachian who attempts to escape to our shores, but you must know I have no intention of honoring such things, and no Skrain will be coming after you here. I’m certain they believe everyone aboard your galleon drowned.”
Taru stirs in their chair. “That is not what… first of all, thank you for that. I mean it. I appreciate your help and hospitality. Truly I do. You have saved me, and I am thankful.”
“It sounds like there is more to that thought than gratitude.”
“There is, yes. When that ship went down I was being ferried to the east to fight against the rebellion brewing there. Forced to fight, I should say.”
Staz takes a long, contemplative drag from her pipe.
“We know about it. We like to keep apprised of these things, from a distance.”
“It is that distance I wish to talk with you about.”
“Oh, aye? What would you ask of me?”
“What I would ask of all the Rok Islanders. To fight.”
Staz laughs, unfurling smoke in every direction. “Fighting. We are good at that. It’s true. Another thing the island teaches you. But the fight you speak of is not here.”
“It is not. You would have to sail to the eastern frontier of Crache itself.”
“The battles we’ve won against Crache have always been within our reefs. That’s where Rok’s strength lies.”
“I would not presume to tell you who you are, but I have to believe the strength of any nation lies in its people.”
“It is always a difficult thing, to speak of an entire people as one. In Crache they call us here on Rok ‘a simple people.’ I am sure you have heard that before. This is a thing you say about a people when you want to treat them like your children, and rarely kindly. People are never simple.”
“I would agree.”
“Do you know what fate is?”
“The idea that everything that happens is meant to happen.”
“On Rok we do not hold with fate. We do not believe the outcome of events cannot be changed, that what we do cannot change such things. But we do believe in the inevitable. Do you understand the difference, my friend?”
“I am not sure I do.”
“We do not believe our actions cannot change things, but we know that whatever happens, whatever comes from that, we must accept the outcome is what must be.”
“I feel as though you are trying to tell me something without speaking to it directly. I have never been good with veiled speech. More often than not it is lost on me.”
“I speak of the inevitable because you have come here to talk of Crache and rebellion.”
“In fairness, I did not come here. I washed up here.”
“Perhaps that too was inevitable.”
“I cannot tell you I see this inevitability you speak of, but I do see opportunity. The rebellion is an opportunity.”
“For you?”
“For all of us, who live under Crache’s yoke and who could be crushed by it.”
“Rok has stood against Crache without breaking, and will continue to do so.”
“Rok has stood against Crache as it is. What about what Crache might become? The Crache that continues to grow and expand, consuming everything in its path. What of a Crache that is twice the size of the one you have repelled in the past?”
“As I say, Crache is inevitable.”
Taru feels frustration and disappointment churning within them, but they do not want to disrespect their host in the captain’s own home by disagreeing with Staz further.
“So too then is Crache’s downfall,” she adds without emotion.
That hits Taru like a fist. They are silent for several moments before speaking again.
“So then… are you saying…”
“I am saying what comes will come, and we must be ready, but I will act to change things as I can.”
Taru can feel an expansion in their chest, something lighter and more hopeful than they’ve felt since being taken into custody by the Aegins.
“Thank you, Captain.”
“Do not thank me yet. As I said, my friend, the people of Rok are not simple. What I believe may not be what my fellow captains believe.”
“And… if they feel differently about this fight? Where does that leave us?”
Staz smiles cattishly. “We will see. You would be surprised what a pot of my stew can do.”
Taru doesn’t know what that means, but they cannot deny the captain’s stew is delicious.
THE GATHERERS
WHEN BRIO ASKED EVIE HOW badly she thought their forces would be outnumbered in the forthcoming battle, she placed their worst odds at ten to one.
It appears she was only slightly off in that estimate.
It looks more like twelve to one, at
least from her cursory count of the Skrain in the massive encampment spread below them.
“Their tents are nicer than ours,” Chimot observes.
Evie smiles wryly. “They would be.”
Three more hooded, black-clad warriors in the upper branches of the vibrantly blooming dragon fruit tree join them. There is a lush and thriving grove of the tall, bountiful trees standing not two hundred yards from the edge of the Skrain camp. It has either been hastily abandoned, or hurriedly ransacked, or both. There are overturned wheelbarrows and smashed crates, not to mention several felled trees.
The leaders of the Gen whom the Franchise Council has granted the dragon fruit harvesting concession for the Tenth City are no doubt sequestered in the Circus of their besieged burg. The workers in their employ who actually tend to and pick the grove are either too afraid to venture out, or too indifferent. In either case, the grove was left for the Skrain gatherers to pick clean and help feed their gargantuan new host.
The small band of Sicclunans, led by Evie, ascended their heightened vantage point just in time to watch the main force of the Skrain army arrive. It was hours simply watching the mounted and marching columns trail into the valley, a seemingly endless snake made of writhing steel armor. It was a sobering if not completely terrifying illustration of how overwhelming their legions are, and how potentially doomed the rebellion may be.
It made them easier to count, in any case.
“We could light a few fires,” Chimot suggests. “Or more than a few.”
Chimot is the scout who came back. She is one of Sirach’s protégés and lieutenants in the Sicclunan special force trained in moving and fighting in the dark of night. Her fellow lieutenants did not return from their mission, and were not taken prisoner alongside Sirach and Mother Manai.
Though badly wounded, Chimot refused to remain behind when Evie conceived their current mission. Evie watched the woman (though she appears barely more than a girl) clean and stitch up her own lacerations, cleansing her other cuts and bruises with some manner of Sicclunan salve that seemed like it scorched her and caused those injuries to steam briefly. All the while she cursed the Skrain who ambushed them and colorfully described the ways in which she would dispatch them upon their next encounter.
She very much reminds Evie of Sirach, in fact.
“Maybe on our way out,” she tells Chimot. “That’s not why we’ve come.”
“Of course it isn’t,” Chimot says calmly, a breath passing before she adds, with only the dullest edge of irony, “General.”
Evie says nothing. She knows her hold over the Sicclunan forces is tenuous at best, but this small contingent, at least, is united by one factor: their shared love of Sirach.
The Skrain host that has arrived from the west is still establishing camp, which is good for her party and their plans. There is a brief period of preoccupation and disorder, if not controlled chaos, when an army of that size previously on the march settles, particularly in preparation for what they expect to be a lengthy and exhaustive siege.
“Or maybe one big fire,” Chimot muses later.
Evie shakes her covered head. “I like the way you think, anyway.”
The branches below their position in the treetop begin rustling as if seized by an ill wind. Evie’s black-gloved hand goes for the hilt of her short sword, but Chimot reaches out to still her. “He’s ours,” she says. “Did you hear him coming before now?”
Again, Evie allows that nudging in her tone to pass.
She looks down at the blooms covering the branches beneath where the rest of them have posted. A hooded and masked head deftly emerges through it, as if rising from the surface of a calm pool. Barely a leaf or stick is stirred, much less broken, as the Sicclunan warrior practically swims up to join them.
“They’re coming,” a voice muffled by the cloth of the mask informs them.
Evie and Chimot trade looks through their thin eye slits. Evie nods decisively.
They’d spied the party of anglers as Evie’s band crept past the Skrain’s own scouts just after dusk. The group was finishing up a long day of fishing several small ponds in the area. The anglers wore no insignia—only the shabby, stinking garb of their trade—but Evie knew they were part of the Skrain’s gatherers, no doubt dispatched to catch fresh fish for the officers in the camp who commanded a better meal than common soldiers.
Chimot gives a similar nod to the other black-clad soldiers, and then begins leading them silently down through the branches of the tree.
Evie follows, far less experienced than they in these clandestine arts. She is a quick study, however. She watches their hands and feet, the way they move their bodies, and how all of that interacts with their surroundings. Evie tries to mimic those movements and understand the methodology behind them.
They all drop from the lower branches to the grove floor without announcing their landing. Just as quickly, each shrouded scout merges with the bark of a different dragon fruit tree, practically disappearing from sight in the encroaching darkness of the evening.
Evie stays close to Chimot, pressing her body beside the younger woman’s and against the thick hide of a particularly ancient specimen.
“You’re getting less slow,” Chimot taunts under her breath.
“You’re almost the teacher Sirach is,” Evie fires back in the same hushed tone.
They wait. Soon they hear the crunch of leaf and blade underfoot as half a dozen people trek through the grove.
From where she and Chimot are concealed, Evie watches the anglers, straw hats drooping over their heads and bamboo poles hanging over their shoulders. Each pair is carrying a heavily burdened basket between them, freshly caught fish of several different sizes and varieties piled above the rims.
They look tired, wearied by more than the day. They’re scrawny, the lot of them, underfed themselves despite spending long days harvesting bountiful fare for others. Their clothes are run through with holes and stained with the blood and oils of their catch.
“We don’t need to kill any of them,” Evie whispers to Chimot.
“Burying their bodies would seem quite rude otherwise,” the young warrior rejoins.
Very much like Sirach, Evie thinks.
“They’re not soldiers,” she says. “They’re anglers. Lowly men and women fishing to survive.”
“War is not the time to distinguish between our enemies and those who give them shelter and aid.”
“It’s the most important time to do so,” Evie counters.
“Sirach wouldn’t hesitate.”
Evie’s tone darkens. “Sirach is not here.”
She hears an exasperated sigh in the dark. “No, and if we tie those anglers up and leave them, and if one of them gets free or they’re discovered, we will not succeed in retrieving Sirach. We’ll also probably all die ourselves.”
Evie steps away from the tree to face Chimot directly, squaring her shoulders and putting as much bass as she can behind a whisper. “This is neither an argument nor a discussion. I am giving you an order.”
Chimot turns to face Evie fully now, hands hanging loosely at her sides, though the rest of her body seems tense.
The position of the other Sicclunan fighters doesn’t change, but there is a subtle shift in their postures. Evie senses it more than she sees it.
She knows they are looking to Chimot for guidance and leadership. If it comes to blows between her and Evie, the black-clad warriors won’t hesitate to support Chimot.
They remain Sicclunan, and Evie cannot fault them for that.
She waits, quietly digging her feet into the ground beneath them. Apparently it is loud enough to draw Chimot’s gaze downward for a scant moment before it returns to Evie’s face.
Whatever process of deliberation is occurring behind her eyes happens quickly, at least. Chimot slowly relaxes her posture, leaning back against the bark of the tree.
“We’ll gag them and hang them up in the trees, alive,” she says, practically grumbling
, “It’ll take as long as burying them, I suppose.”
THE BODY (FOR REAL THIS TIME)
“YOU LOOK WELL,” DYEAWAN NOTES of Nia as the two of them sit outside the secreted chambers in the heart of the Planning Cadre.
And she does. Nia appears thoroughly undisturbed by their recent shared experience. Her gray planner’s tunic is freshly washed and pressed, and utterly free of creases. Her dark hair with its dull orange and red touches is neatly bound back in a tail. She looks rested, her eyes bright and clear with not a trace of swelling or sagging from a restless night.
Her hands are even free of fresh cuts, whereas Dyeawan’s are wrapped in fresh dressings, the insides of which have been treated with healing ointment.
She probably wore gloves, Dyeawan thinks to herself. Of course she thought to bring gloves. We were called to the base of a mountain. Why did I not think of it as well?
They were probably thick gloves, too.
Dyeawan has to consciously suppress the frown that threatens to overtake her lips.
The only sign Nia even undertook the same climb is a pebbly magenta welt raised on her right temple, probably from failing to dodge a falling rock. The welt and its color even seem to complement her appearance.
Nia, for her part, responds to Dyeawan’s observation with the slightest bow of her head. “You look well also,” she says a moment later.
Dyeawan briefly dips her chin in kind.
Neither of them looks directly at the other. They are, both of them, keeping their eyes fixed on the closed chamber doors across the corridor in front of them. A gap of nearly five feet separates Dyeawan’s tender from the nondescript chair on which Nia sits, backed against the wall. They each keep their backs high and straight, their chins slightly raised.
Dyeawan is aware they are posturing, but she can’t seem to make herself stop.
Those closed doors are equally baffling. There aren’t many doors in the Planning Cadre to begin with. The majority of the keep’s design is open, with broad, accessible arches.
In addition, these doors are not of the typical Crachian aesthetic. Quite the contrary, they are both forged from solid-looking steel rather than carved from wood, and each is adorned with wrought iron rungs held in the mouths of giant ants forged and sculpted from the same material.