The Vastness

by Hausladen, Blake;

  “Yes, with his officers and many thousands of Hemari. The Corneth outnumber them and are spilling across the plaza. More people are dying.”

  I had to squint to tell one side from the other in the terrible storm of confused souls. “There is fighting everywhere in the plaza now. Oh, so many on both sides are dying now. Evand is pushing around the Corneth with another group, moving through the carols and studies, I think. They’ve charging out behind the Corneth. Oh, Evand, be careful! He is right in the middle, running into them. Aha! There, he’s killed the senior Corneth man. Oh, that’s broke them. The rest are running.”

  “What about the rest of the city?” she asked.

  I told her in quick sequence about all the small battles across the city. The city’s towers were in the Hemari control, but not the harbor or the many roads between us and the archives.

  One of the maids started yelling, and then all three of them came running with tales of Corneth mobs in the streets.

  “Time to move,” Ellyon said. “Did Evand send anyone our way? Are there any Hemari nearby?”

  I searched and found several hundred moving toward us. A couple of them died while I watched. “Yes. They are fighting to get here.”

  “The Corneth are trying to get ahold of us,” Liv said, folded up my map, and snatched up her daughter. “Lead the way, Emi.”

  Benjam and Natan were ready for the move. We eased through the estate’s north wall and out into the streets. The air was thick with smoke and shouting and it was darker than I expected. The battle had taken much longer than it seemed to have, and I wondered how many times I’d left the world behind to watch the dance of souls. The patience of my friends was without limit.

  We moved as fast as we could and I pointed us along a route between the marauding Corneth. At the far end of the park we spotted the Hemari, Okel in command. He smiled to see us and moved his men to envelop us.

  “This way,” he said and pointed back the way he’d come.

  “No, wait. More of the Corneth are spilling south. That way is blocked. We should go this way.”

  “East?” Okel asked. “We could get pinned along the river. Are you sure?”

  Everyone else was already moving. Benjam handed off his shield and weapon and scooped me up in his arms. “Point the way, little goddess.”

  We became a rolling comet then, and it was like flicking in and out of a dream. We soared along east and north through alleys, and then smashed through an estate with a wide orchard of apples that wrapped back around west. A comet once again, we shot along above an angry tumble of ants until the smells of river fish woke me to the harbor warehouses we crept through. Then back south we hurtled between two nests of violent stars toward Evand’s ordered ranks.

  The stink of opened bodies assaulted me next and I woke to a view of a thousand wounded men gathered upon the archive steps. Inside the grand foyer I found Evand with his new officers gathered around a map. Their fast words came to a stop as they saw us.

  Each of them was wounded as well.

  “Father, your arm,” I said. The mangled wreck below his left elbow looked as though it had gotten smashed in a gate or beneath a rolling horse. He had it bound up in a harness, and I would have run to him if not for the steadiness of his face and his soul. Around him, a network of captains and lieutenants had units of men moving a hundred places at once while scouts like Benjam fell back toward Evand like fat drops of warm rain.

  “A trifle, right Natan?” Evand said and the pair laughed and tapped the ribbons upon their chests.

  Liv and I did not find this funny at all. We spotted one of our volunteer priests and waved him forward.

  “Not yet,” Evand said. “We are preparing a counter attack, and I want the Corneth to be stumbling around from the happy glow of healing when we hit them.”

  “You mean to use the healing magic as a weapon,” Liv said with a ferocious smile and hurried his table full of maps. Evand’s many scrawled with ink and brush upon one caught Liv up to his fast moving plans.

  When an office with a gashed forehead and a broken hand brought word that everyone was in position, I closed my eyes to make sure. The difference in the men in just that short time was a delight to witness. All of Evand’s men had stopped moving, and every one of them had their souls pointed at me.

  Evand waved on the ready priest, and I gave the man a small hug before he withdrew a pace and began to sing. He was strong, and the smash of his white song knocked me fell flat on my back. I struggled for a moment through the friendly warmth to see what was happening in the city.

  Evand’s soldiers had been ready for it, and when the priest’s verse ended they swarmed the Corneth in a hundred places at once. Every blockade, tower, and estate was overrun so fast that my skin was still tingling with magic when the action was over. I expected to watch as thousands died on both side, but there were only a few capable of deadly violence after such happy and welcome magic.

  It was a thing to remember.

  Scouts relayed reports of the outcome almost as fast as I could describe it.

  “Alsonelm was ours,” I said.

  The room cheered. Evand hefted me off the ground and kissed my cheek, as Liv join the grand embrace.

  Still his soul was fixed and ready. He saw that the priest was tended to while the great roaring of joy began to subside around us, and then he calling the room to attention.

  “Ellyon,” he said first, “Find a general’s helmet and the insignia Liv made for us. Spend some time with the officers of the 4th. Emilia doesn’t know to look for them yet, but this city is loaded with a different kind of refugee. More of the 5th survived than we though. They are here in Alsonelm as are many Hemari from other divisions that fled Yarik’s command over the seasons. The Corneth, for all their flaws, quietly made the city a sanctuary for our lost brothers. It is upon my promise to see the honor of those men restored that we won the city. They will be the heart and soul of the new Hemari 7th. Be swift, general.”

  Evand’s focus set deep into every Hemari there, and Ellyon went without another word. I closed my eyes once to try and find these men I had missed, and it galled me how obvious it was and yet how hard it was to find them without knowledge of the pattern. Their souls were not tied to any one grand captain or general. They were tied only to each other and all but invisible from their sadness.

  “Benjam,” Evand said next, “You are now a captain of the Hemari 4th. Fix your sleeves and shoulders and assemble a fresh company of scouts. Make sure they are boys from the hills and fields south of here. We have Emilia’s eyes, but I need maps of every feature of terrain between us, Rahan, and Yarik as soon as possible.”

  “I’ll need three companies to see it done properly.”

  “You can have two.”

  Benjam paused long enough to bow to me before he rushed out.

  To Natan, Evand said, “Take command of every man here who survived the Warrens, and move them to the harbor with all speed and secure every ship before someone else thinks to make off with them. Once done, I give you leave to cross the river, and liberate the people of the city Servants’ Quarter.”

  Natan’s stained soul bloomed and the joy spread. “May we offer them what Rahan offered us?”

  “Yes. His treatment of the Warrens is above reproach. I empower you to do the same. Send across to Ellyon the men who would join the Hemari. You do not have a season, though. We may need to be on the move in a matter of days. Keep it simple. They have been healed. Get them feed and organized.”

  Natan went and Evand waved Wayland close and took his arm. “As soon as Natan has secured the ships in the harbor I need you to find the fastest ship and fastest horses Alsonelm has to offer. I will have a letter ready shortly that must be taken with all speed to Admiral Soma in Aneth. Go.”

  He vanished and Evand said to Liv, “We’ll need to get hold of the city’s nobility, especially those that sided with the Corneth or lost their fortunes to the rate change.”

  “Nac
e knows their names,” she replied, and waved the banker over. “I’ll assemble a staff and send invitations for them to meet us and voice their concern. The Grano will need some handholding.”

  “How so?” he asked before he remembered Phost. “You didn’t kill my uncle did you?”

  “No, but I shattered his jaw and sent him and those close to him to Bessradi with Avin. I’ll invite Ellyon and a few other Grano officers.”

  “Don’t forget to remind them it is the green of the Grano the 7th will wear on its sleeves,” Evand said. “I will never understand how you had the foresight to use my family’s color as backing for the new insignia.”

  Liv and I shared a look. Green was the only color she’d been able to find at the time. The happy accident would remain our secret.

  “Are we staying here or moving to the Corneth Keep?” Liv asked.

  “Here,” he said and all three of us looked around, our mind rushed to follow the actions of our friends. For a long moment we were bent by the desire to join and help them. Already though, desperate people with hopes and demands were moving toward their new king and queen from all over the city, and I could feel the need for us to look beyond. Information from very far away would be needed, and I slowly let go of the desire to be moving.

  “Let me find some real sleep,” I said to Evand, “And I’ll get to work looking for Vesteal and Hessier.”

  59

  Sikhek Vesteal

  The roof creaked loud enough each sunrise and sunset that I could hear them all the way down in my bony pit. For three days this distant groan was the only thing I heard, save my own breathing and the clatter of bone when I shifted. I thought I should be hungry or thirsty, but no real wants occupied my mind.

  A rumbling and a long terrible scream reached me the next day, but nothing else until the nightly round of creaking rafters.

  Footsteps a day later, heavy and regular, had me searching for Geart’s touch. The trapdoor growled like a beast opening its maw and a blazing light appeared.

  “You down there, sir? Minister, I mean,” a man asked.

  My throat was dry, but I managed to speak after a single cough. “Wish that I wasn’t. Who is asks?”

  ”How do you say your name?” the man asked the shape next to him in the blaze of lantern light.

  “Mika,” she replied.

  “Mica?”

  “Stand aside, man,” she said. “Minister, it is Mika Nuar from the Savdi Valley. Get up here, you great fool.”

  The end of a rope slapped the bones beside me with a sharp clatter. I snatched it and did my best to climb.

  “Pull,” the man said. The rope hissed and sent a cascade of fiber and dust onto my face. I coughed, held on, and scrambled through. The group hefted me up and tugged me toward the stairs.

  I took one look back at the entrance to the hell I had created. It was only one of a thousand places like it.

  It was the dark of night above. I thought at first that they had snuck themselves into the palace to free me, but the place was a deserted ruin, and we reached the dining hall with the fine map of the East. Another group of gawkers waited for us there amidst broken furniture and bloodstains. One of the room’s tall windows and its entire frame had been stove-in and its double doors were smashed outward. Claw marks gouged the floor. Planks and tools littered the hallways beyond as though they’d started too late to board the palace up.

  Some of the people in the crowd began to look familiar. The man was the doorman from the whorehouse. Others were the whores, staff, and guards. There was no sign of the brothel’s owner. Mika stood out, the savage bear tattoo upon her face and many piercings. They seemed in common company.

  A wet and jagged animal snort from somewhere outside reminded me of my folly.

  “We cannot stay here,” I said to Mika. “Did you bring any iron vessels?”

  “None,” she said. “Not something you carry around. I am one of many searching the coast for you. I heard a tale about a singer at the Battle of Yorn Valley, and another of a man who walked away from a thirty-day adventure at whorehouse with a knife in his liver. The entire valley heard you sing to the ghosts beneath the palace.”

  Mika pointed at an attractive redhead. The woman said, “You tried to convince the Arilas to gather up the city and escape north. Can you still get us out?”

  Had the redhead been in the room when I spoke to the Arilas—the same one I’d tumbled with for all those days at the brothel? She looked at me like I’d come to the palace to save her. The last thing I needed was to be someone’s hero. Barok was already a thousand times more than what the world deserved from the Vesteal.

  “What happened to the Arilas?” I asked.

  Mika said, “When the caribou started bashing at the city’s gates he sent his pikemen down. Every man who went was killed. The Arilas fled to his keep by the river, and the creatures tore through the city until those things had knocked in every gate and doorway. Now they roam the city and surrounding fields killing anyone that tries to leave.”

  “How many of them are there?”

  “Thirty caribou, a couple hawks, and a great bear. Are they Hessier?”

  “Like Hessier, yes.”

  The group gawked harder and the redhead said, “Can you save us or not?”

  I’d not commanded a poorer army, and never had I faced such a foe. Still, it was a better position than waiting on a bone pit for Geart to dissect me.

  “Who here can swing a hammer?”

  The redhead volunteered and this did not please me either. She was preceded by a million others who had hoped to win my love or favor over the centuries. I snatched her by the arm, grabbed a hammer from the pile of tools, and walked us out into the moonlight. A lone caribou mare stood a stone’s throw away upon the lawn. A distant cough at the bottom of the long hill was the only other sign of them.

  “I can keep away the creature’s dark touch,” I said. “Walk straight toward it and hit it between the eyes as hard as you can. Do not stop hitting its skull until it quits moving.”

  She tied back her hair, took hold of the hammer in both hands, and went without any of the dew-eyed weeping or blathering that I’d expected. She made it across without balking, and the stupid beast did nothing but look at her until its forehead was caved in. It managed to leap aside but immediately fell. The girl pursued it with a bravery I did not understand and beat its head flat. She screamed once at the motionless corpse and the marched back to us while trying in vain to wipe the gore from her arms and face.

  The group was too shocked by the demonstration to celebrate her small victory.

  I’d learned what I needed to from the experiment. Geart had the beast there to keep them from leaving, not to kill them. The rest of the city’s many thousands would be alive.

  “She might be the most capable of the bunch,” Mika asked. “Can we get them trained in the next couple days?”

  “You misjudge the time we have. The downed mare will be seen come the dawn and they will get new instructions. We don’t need bravery like hers or any measure of training. All we need is numbers.”

  “Numbers we can get,” Mika said. “The entire valley is ready to quit Yudyith to be away from these things.”

  I could not help but imagine Barok racing through the city and all the surrounding towns trying to save every person he could. The notion was so distasteful that I considered making an escape without them.

  The angry redhead gave up trying to brush away the stink and hefted the hammer. “Are you going to help us or not?”

  She meant to hit me with it, if I said no. The moonlight caught her eyes and those deep blue pools seemed almost to glow.

  I nodded, but it was not for the same reasons Barok would have.

  Mika led us through the narrow streets and we emerged onto a plaza along the river banks carpeted by thousands of sad people they Caribou had trapped there. The girls did all the talking while the dawn began to warm the sky. Pieces of the crowd stood and moved toward us.r />
  I did not let this momentum go to waste and started toward the gates before they fell to debates and discussions. Enough of them followed.

  We encountered two caribou as we marched down the hill. I pushed away their dark touch, and the angry crowd hacked them to pieces. The victory doubled our numbers.

  At the bottom of the hill we found the wrecked gates and trampled regiment of pikemen. The beasts that had done it roamed the fields outside. They were in poor shape but better than the first bull I had encountered. The bear was there, too, sitting in the center of the road wearing the post of a window frame through its hip.

  Geart’s power was growing. He knew something I did not. I would have his secret, if I had to distill it from his corpse.

  “Loot the pikemen and open these foul creature’s skulls,” I said. “Swarm them, and we can escape the city.”

  They stood in place like so many sheep, and I considered abandoning them again until the girls stepped forward and began to loot pikes from the carpet of metal bodies.

  “Come on, I’m not dying here,” one of them shouted.

  Others started forward and the momentum got the thousands moving through the broken gates and out toward the caribou.

  Mika and the redhead appeared at my side while I worked to push away the creatures’ touch. Mika asked, “Should we send word to the keep that we are breaking out?”

  “Think numbers, not rank or weapons. The more bodies we get free of the city, the better off we will be. This city’s nobles and their soldiers are more trouble than they are worth.”

  Something of a charge started then, only to stall as the bear roared, sick and ugly.

  I gathered up the layer of the Shadow’s power lingering there and cobble together a small song that had no business being sung.

  tongue swell

  The crippled bear swung its head from side to side and its roaring ceased. The people of Cyaudi gained fresh momentum and swarmed the undead animals. It was messy, and the Shadow relished the pour of souls across the grass. A bull caribou galloped around the side of the city and charged through them. A wall of bodies went down, but the unthinking creature tripped over the wet pile and broke a leg. While it floundered, a pike cleaved its head open. The bear fought on and on while the last of the caribou were hacked to pieces, but with a mouthful of tongue and a shattered hip the thing was more of a carnival act. They smashed its shoulders, and finally its skull.