by Matthew Ward
The longsword tracked across the bridge of his nose to his good eye.
“Captain Tzila!” Altiris started forward.
A slender arm, sheathed in red velvet, held him back.
“Yes, we’re all very impressed.” For all that Anastacia’s words were addressed to Tzila, her attention was on her fingernails, curled tight against her palm. Inspection complete, she looked up. “But if you’re done picking on the elderly, perhaps you’d care to test yourself.”
Tzila straightened. Kurkas exhaled relief as the swords twirled away to rest against her shoulders.
Sidara helped Kurkas to his feet. “Are you all right?”
“Never better.” He glared at Tzila’s retreating back, then across to where Anastacia shivered, the point of Altiris’ borrowed sword planted in the snow at her feet. “You sure she’s up to this? That captain is a killer.”
“No.” Sidara winced. “Five minutes ago she complained she couldn’t feel her fingers.”
Jaridav shrugged off her cloak and set it about Kurkas’ shoulders. He offered a grateful nod. “So stop her.”
“How?”
“Fair point.” He glanced up at the empty terrace, and cursed the highbloods for seeking warmer climes. “Jaridav? Find the Lord Protector, would you? Tell him things have gotten out of hand. We could use his brooding countenance out here.”
“I’ll go.” Lady Sevaka departed for the terrace door at a jog.
Fighting shivers, Kurkas turned back to the duelling ground. Tzila and Anastacia stood a handful of paces apart. The former had discarded the longsword, again armed only with a single sabre.
“Don’t talk much, do you?” said Anastacia, through chattering teeth.
Tzila twirled her sabre to rest in an approximation of low guard, and started forward.
“Wait!” Anastacia held out her free hand, fingers splayed. “I can’t do this!”
Surprised by the concession, Tzila stumbled, off-balance for the first time that morning. Kurkas breathed a sigh of relief.
Anastacia frowned in thought, thrust her sword into the ground and seized the hem of her skirts in both hands. Stitches popped and fabric tore, slitting a dress easily worth six months of a hearthguard’s salary to mid-thigh first on one side, and then the other. That done, she unbuckled the delicate, strapped shoes and kicked them away.
“Now I can do this.” Anastacia tugged the sword free, and sprang.
Any pretensions Kurkas had to being a master swordsman evaporated in that first exchange of blows. He’d seen the plant pot fight before, but she’d done so with the blithe unconcern of one who’d known herself all but immune, and had thus favoured brute force over finesse.
This was wholly other, a blur of slashes and ripostes that Kurkas’ eye struggled to follow. Not so Tzila, who somehow met every blow in kind, her twirling sabre on the move again even as the clash of metal faded. Yet there was an edge to the captain’s motions absent before, the artistry of swordplay eroded by merciless necessity.
No one spoke. No one cheered. Looking about the duelling ground, Kurkas saw his own nervous awe reflected on the faces of hearthguards.
Tzila gave ground, her careful steps overcome by Anastacia’s wild rhythm. Both resembled dancers more than duellists. But where the captain’s motion belonged the formality of the stage, Anastacia’s was the wilder pirouette of bonfires beneath starlight, her roamer’s aspect accentuated by spiralling skirts and bare feet across the snow.
A shriek of pain. Blood spattered bright.
Anastacia reeled away, free hand clasped to a gashed shoulder, blood oozing between her fingers. Tzila bore down, a sabre now in each hand, the leftmost dripping red.
“No!” Sidara started forward, golden light gathering about her shoulders and the simarka on her heels.
Altiris, still weaponless, came a pace behind. Jaridav and Brass a pace behind him. Tzila halted, swords held at guard, but malice temporarily in abeyance.
A spreading bloodstain fouling her left sleeve, Anastacia staggered another pace and waved both away, her voice distant, pained, but also surprised. “It’s nothing!” She set her gaze on Tzila. “I feel like I should know you. Why is that, do you suppose?”
Kurkas glanced towards the terrace. Where was Lord Droshna anyway? “It’s past time this ended!”
“I agree.” The plant pot turned shaking fingers this way and that, fascinated as the bloody trail trickled to fresh courses across pale skin. Her eyes drifted to Tzila’s left-hand sabre. “But if we’re cheating, we’re cheating.”
A pair of translucent golden wings unfurled at Anastacia’s shoulders, their light a match for that suddenly suffusing the blade of her sword. Eyes shining, she started forward.
A single step, and she screamed. She doubled over, daylight wings evaporating. The sword slipped from her hand, metal turning cold and dark.
As Anastacia fell to her knees, Tzila sprang, sabres glinting in the morning sun.
Kurkas’ borrowed cloak fell away as he flung himself forward, already knowing he – and everyone else – would be too late.
The morning’s shadows lengthened.
“ENOUGH!”
Tzila froze at Lord Droshna’s bellow. Her swords, inches from Anastacia’s throat, whirled about and returned to their scabbards. Phoenixes rushed between the two, Altiris at the centre and blades bristling.
Sidara skidded to her knees at Anastacia’s side. “Fredrik!”
Hackles high, the simarka loped to take up position between Anastacia and Tzila, its golden-eyed stare frozen on the latter.
“Captain Tzila!” Lord Droshna bore down, expression more thunderous than Kurkas had seen in many a year. “Return to the palace at once! We’ll speak of this later.”
She bowed and strode for the driveway. Lord Droshna reached Anastacia’s side and with surprising gentleness helped her stand. She sank against Sidara, eyes red-rimmed and the left side of her dress bloody. Hearthguards looked on, appalled.
“What are you staring at?” demanded Altiris, his face pale. “You’ve duties. Be about them!”
One by one, the hearthguards withdrew towards the house, leaving Lord Droshna looming over those who remained.
“My apologies,” he ground out. “This won’t happen again.”
“No,” Anastacia rejoined hoarsely, teeth chattering and murder in her eyes. “It won’t.”
She didn’t elaborate. Nor did she need to. Though given how swiftly her strength had failed, Kurkas doubted Anastacia could make good her threat. The indestructible plant pot of recent memory was gone, however much she pretended otherwise.
Lord Droshna grimaced. “Look after her, Sidara.”
Lord Trelan appeared on the terrace, Izack at one shoulder and Lady Sevaka at the other. Suddenly haggard, he ran to help Sidara with Anastacia, but whatever words passed between them were lost to distance.
“What in Lumestra’s name just happened?” asked Altiris.
“You’re asking the wrong man,” Kurkas replied, his eyes on the departing Tzila. “But you take my advice. If you find yourself on the other end of those swords for real, run away as fast as you can.”
Twenty-Four
It wasn’t Rosa’s first time in a cell, bereft of all save stained and filthy clothes. Then, she’d been desperate, her life upended by events barely understood. Then, the hangman’s noose had been welcoming prospect more than anything else. A release. An escape.
This was worse. Not because the dungeons of Haldravord Castle were fouler than those of the Tressian constabulary. They were much the same. Iron bars. Low ceilings. High, grilled windows to grant illusion of light. The acrid stench of a slops bucket inadequate to its mournful task. Creaking, slatted beds. Save for the muted roar of a crowd beyond the castle’s thick, limestone walls, it was even peaceful, or near enough. Had Rosa been alone, she could have borne it, even with death a ready prospect.
But she wasn’t alone.
They numbered thirty-one in all, now Solveik had
passed during the night. The Thrakkian had gone to the feast halls of Skanandra without a sound. Rosa had rebound his wounds, clung to his hand as his eyes had filled with Skanandra’s forge-light, but hers had never been a healer’s gift.
Others would join him in death before the day was out. Too many listless eyes. Too many bodies gasping in restless agony. The living were twice the burden of the dying. Of the captured wolf’s-heads, perhaps twenty were as uninjured as she. Indeed, most were haler still, for they’d not fallen from a galloping horse. Rosa’s body was a sea of bruises and crusted cuts, sparse islands of unharmed flesh rare and treasured. Guilt was a sorer burden than pain, and grew heavier as spirits guttered and sank.
“You ask me, Solveik had it lucky.” Jonas sat on the floor beside the heavy iron door, ankles crossed and elbows against his knees. Red-rimmed eyes stared at the Thrakkian’s corpse. “If we’re to die, better it be sooner.”
No other accepted the bleak conversational gambit. Only Mirada, her narrow features just visible in the gloom, offered a twitch of lip to show she’d heard.
Rosa rolled off her creaking bed and to her feet. Vision blurred, reminding her of hours passed without food and water. “Soldiers don’t wish for death.”
“We’re not soldiers.” Jonas’ voice shook as he spoke. “I should have stayed home.”
Beneath the grime, his left eye was swollen almost shut. Riders had caught him just beyond Elmgran Wood. He’d not even landed a blow before they’d dragged him from his horse.
No other spoke, but expressions aplenty offered agreement.
“They’ll come for us.” Was it true? Once, Rosa would have wagered her life on Viktor’s intervention. But now? She shook the thought away. Viktor was not the Republic. “If not the army, then Essamere. If it’s at all possible, they will come. Our part is to make sure we’re here when they do.”
Mirada snorted. “Unless we can escape.”
“Unless that, yes.” Rosa stood before Jonas. “Get up.”
He looked at her without truly seeing. “Why?”
His sorrow sought companionship with Rosa’s own. Yes, he should have stayed home. But he hadn’t. And he didn’t need sympathy. He needed something to cling to. They all did. She let a little of the parade ground into her voice. “Get. Up.”
Jonas rose, the confines leaving them almost nose to nose. More than close enough to read his eyes. Fear. Anger. And shame most of all.
“Bunch your fist to your chest.” Rosa glanced through the dungeon’s murk, making whatever eye contact she could. “Everyone who can. Do it!”
Mirada’s lip twitched a small, wry smile. She at least recognised what was happening, but simply stood, rag-bound fingers clasped to her chest. Others joined her, shoulder to shoulder between the bars – even a few Rosa had assumed too feeble to obey.
“There’s little less use than a broken sword,” she said. “Repeat it.”
“There’s little less use than a broken sword.” The reply was barely the sigh of a dying breeze.
“Save for a shield that shelters no more.” She met Jonas’ gaze, daring him to look away.
“Save for a shield that shelters no more.”
“Come dawn or come dusk, I obey one command.”
The lad’s restless eyes steadied. His voice grew firm.
“Come dawn or come dusk. I obey one command.”
“My vigil I’ll keep. Until Death, I stand.”
“My vigil I’ll keep. Until Death, I stand.”
“You’re soldiers now. You’re Essamere.” A fleeting truth, for the full Vigil Oath was many stanzas longer, and written in the formal tongue. More than that, Rosa hardly had the authority to induct wolf’s-heads into the order. But fleeting truths were sometimes enough. “Essamere stands together. They will come for us.”
“And if they don’t?” The bitter challenge came from Rosa’s right.
“Then we face the Raven proud.” Jonas faltered over the words. “And we wait for Third Dawn.”
The challenger fell silent. Others, Mirada among them, even nodded. Oaths gave purpose, even in a cage.
Rosa only hoped it was enough.
Along the uneven corridor, the dungeon door creaked open. A tall, scarred man in golden scale stalked into sight, lips twisted in disgust. Men in Silsarian garb flooded in behind. Some carried shackles and lengths of coarse rope. Enough bore naked steel to forestall hope of escape.
The Immortal jabbed a gloved finger at Rosa. “This one.”
Keys rattled in locks. Rough hands dragged Rosa into the passageway and slammed her face-first against the wall. Grit and lichen speckled her breath. Blood from fresh scratches warmed her cheek. She held anger close, knowing that to resist was death. Unseen assailants yanked her hands behind. Cold steel closed about her bruised wrists.
A shove spun her about to face the Immortal.
“Where are you taking her?” Jonas demanded.
A punch through the bars set him staggering. Clinging to failing scraps of temper as a Silsarian slipped a rope about her neck, Rosa held Jonas’ gaze. “Until Death.”
He raised a trembling fist to his chest. “Until Death.”
The Silsarian tugged on the rope and hauled her towards the stairs.
Daylight offered Rosa her first true glimpse of Haldravord since the Hadari occupation. The town remained recognisable enough, thatch and tile above wattle and brick. But it felt alien. The statue of Lumestra that had long dominated the bridge between castle and town was gone, replaced by one of her sister Ashana, a crescent moon in one hand, and the full in the other. Deeper into the streets, austere timber frontages hid beneath bright canopies. And the last difference, so subtle Rosa didn’t notice at first… beneath the melting snow the streets were clean, the gutters unclogged where they so often overflowed.
Rosa stumbled on across cobbles, driven on by the twin masters of the rope about her neck and the swords at her back. A curiosity gawked at by robed men and women from stall and doorway, and less obviously from the paler Tressians who hurried past, heads bowed. Temper cared not for impotence and flared with every impatient jerk on the rope. By the time she’d been goaded through the marketplace – past the small scaffold about the remnant of a Lumestran shrine, and up the broad stairway to the reeve’s manor – every tug of the leash demanded ironclad self-control.
The manor’s interior was something from Itharoci myth, the tomb of some great king ushered into the mists by stores of undreamt wealth. Statues of bird-masked equerries lined every passageway, gemstones gleaming in their eyes. Golden tapestries hid the oak-panelled walls. Drapes were of patterned silk, rather than heavy velvet. High-necked vases and bronze figurines adorned shelf and table. Like Haldravord’s streets, the Tressian supplanted by the Hadari.
Laughter and delicate song echoed all around.
And everywhere, robed servants and golden-scaled Immortals, liveried in the stag of Redsigor – the kingdom that yearned to be, but not yet was.
Rosa’s captors escorted her through the double doors and into the manor’s courtyard garden. A jerk on the rope brought her to a halt.
“Ah. Here she is.” Standing by the pondside, Thirava extended a lackadaisical hand. A boot in the back of her knee pitched her onto the path. “Lady Roslava Orova, late Council Champion and Reaper of the Ravonn. You recognise her, of course, Edgir?”
He addressed a dark-complexioned man at his side – one of two others gathered about the pond. Like Thirava, he wore flowing silk robes, though they were perhaps not so finely cut – midnight blue, and blazoned with the branches of a bare tree. A prince of distant Corvant? The other man wore the bear of Demestae, and a broad, ingenuine smile. Both clutched goblets, though neither brandished theirs so extravagantly as Thirava who, if not already in his cups, was well on the way.
Edgir grunted. “I do, majesty.” Rosa was more or less fluent in the Imperial tongue, but his mournful accent made challenge of understanding the words. “Six years is not enough to forget that harr
idan.”
His face meant nothing to Rosa, but she recalled so few details of Govanna Field. Only the blood, and the screams, and the ineluctable, harrowing sense of her humanity in retreat.
Thirava quaffed from his goblet. “The wager is mine. Pay up!”
Edgir hesitated. Then, transfixed by a gaze gone unfriendly, he unlooped a purse from his belt. With obvious reluctance, he set it at the foot of a silver cat statue.
Rosa gritted her teeth and let herself sway. Feigning weakness was the only weapon she had. The knot of princes aside, the courtyard held only her leash holder and the two clansmen at her back – only the latter three were armed. Poor odds, but she was accustomed to those.
If only her hands had been free.
“Let this be a lesson to all that Thirava is a man of his word. A man who backs claim with deed.” Thirava wheeled away, treading the narrow path towards Rosa. “Not so fearsome now, is she, my friends?”
She glared up at him. “Set me free, and I’ll show you fear.”
“I think not.”
He upended his goblet. Wine trickled through Rosa’s filthy hair and rushed away across back and shoulders. Self-restraint gone, she growled and flung himself at him. The leash dragged her to her knees.
Thirava laughed, his mirth echoed politely by the others. They didn’t like him – that much was plain – though formality cloaked truth, just as it so often did among the Tressian elite.
He gestured to the Demestan prince. “You asked, Faethran, why I defy the Empress? Why my father does so?” Thirava wound his fingers through Rosa’s hair and yanked up her head, baring her throat. Cold wine dribbled down her neck. “Take a good, long look. Do you suppose a creature like this would align herself with troublemakers and malcontents without her masters’ blessing? Tressia never meant to respect the settlement of Govanna. They mean to wipe Redsigor off the map. I mean to defend it to my last breath. No woman has the right to order otherwise, Empress or no.”
So Thirava’s deeds went against the Empress’ decree? Rosa’s surprise yielded to contempt. It tracked all too well with what she knew of Melanna Saranal – like all Hadari, she spoke of honour and truth, but lacked strength of character. That the Eastshires’ sorrows arose from her weakness, rather than her ambition, made her no less culpable.