The Vastness

by Hausladen, Blake;

  The other two were on their sides. My Chaukai tore at the legless things and globs of silver rained upon the ruins of roads and buildings.

  The magic let go of all three and blood began to pour from the silver. It became a river that extinguished the flaming debris and formed a growing pond. On and on it flowed until all that was left of them was twisted masses of silver and a lake of blood that washed through the nearby streets.

  I worried for the deserted city. “Whose blood had they used?”

  “Leger,” Gern called, and I spotted the flight of Chaukai arrows headed in toward the source of the yellow smoke.

  Another soul-iron upon the wall yelled, “They’ve struck us hard. Many are down where the smoke lingers.”

  “Gern, go! They must not get another valley.”

  He and the rest upon horse broiled the air with black ash. I worried they would go too far away from Barok when a company of Chaukai galloped though the gate behind us, Barok in the lead.

  “What are you doing?” I called.

  “Better here than where those arrows are falling.” Then he got a look at the blood and silver and slowed. “I stand corrected.”

  “Never mind them. They are finished. This way.”

  I kept pace with Barok’s horse as we followed the cinders of Gern’s company toward a hill overlooking the town and river. A tithe tower of gray stone stood above it all. Barok did not yell for Gern to stop, and brought the Chaukai to a halt.

  “There,” I said and pointed to a wisp of yellow halfway down the hill from the tower.

  On we went, setting some small fires as we carried over abandoned carts and possessions.

  We found Gern at the next intersection recovering from having advanced so far from Barok.

  He pointed at the gates he’d smash in. Yellow smoke spilled into the street and down the hill. The broad field and garden inside the walls was littered with bodies. A yellow fog lingered about the bodies despite the breeze. Chaukai arrows had reached the field but few of the bodies had been struck.

  “There,” Gern said and I was stopped by the bizarre scene upon the wide steps of rising building.

  A vat lay on its side, cracked and spewing its yellow contents over the silvery forms of the men who’d tended it. Blood poured from them down the stairs and across the bodies of the archers who’d died as the spill carried down the slope. Their metal eyes had swollen and popped. A silver puma missing its hind quarter pulled itself toward one of the silvery corpses. Another smaller cat bit globs of silver from a man’s leg, and gulped them down like water.

  Gern threw his spear and the heavy shaft caught it upon the shoulder. It came apart in a splatter of blood and unbound silver. The puma fell apart on its own.

  “This one’s alive,” one of the men said, and I drifted over the twisted fleshy mass. The man’s head came around. His eyes had dissolved, and his silver face was steaming with boiling blood.

  “Whispers. The whisper…”

  “Whose?” I asked.

  “Bayen, save me. Your words, my god, give me more.”

  I stabbed his head to the stairs before another of the Shadows gifts made matters worse.

  From that high vantage of the stairs I saw the results of their attack upon us behind the walls. A group of silver men and charged out to attack through the deadly smoke. They struck us hard, and may have carried through the ranks as more of the yellow smoke had been set against us.

  “Check the grounds for other creatures and withdraw. Strike the city, leave no building standing.”

  They swung through the streets, and as Barok ordered us to reassemble behind the walls, flames rolled high above the remains of Alsonvale.

  We gathered the bodies of the men struck down by the yellow smoke and the armor of the 32 soul-irons the bulls had claimed. A pyre was lit before the dawn and we started east toward Bessradi.

  Chaukai scouts raced ahead of us in search of what other wrecks of magic or madness the Kaaryon had in store.

  What they brought back instead was a message from Evand. Its many important details were lost to a single line that turned our ordered move east into a punishing fast march.

  Your children are here in the Kaaryon,

  somewhere between Yarik and Rahan.

  70

  Queen Dia Vesteal

  Yarik Yentif

  The carriage was cramped.

  Ghemma, the smallest of us, was shoulder to elbow with Dagoda’s corpulent matron. Burhn and I sat across from them, large body facing small, our legs almost irrevocably intertwined. The babies occupied our collective laps, and despite her claims otherwise, the matron seemed allergic to them. She sneezed loud enough to disturb the horses and looked perfectly miserable. This made Ghemma smile, though each wet sneeze fell heavy on Burhn, whose wounded face and battered nerves had not healed.

  He sat stony, throughout, making no complaints or requests. I loved him for it. It was a complicated enough ride already. Our route took us through the center of the Kaaryon toward the town of Courfel and the constant challenge of Hurdu or Hemari patrols.

  “Gifts for Yarik from Dagoda,” was all the driver had to say to keep us moving, and it happened only once that a Hurdu took a look for himself.

  “Bermish. Figures,” he said and tucked his coins away before hollering at us to move along.

  I overheate often as I thought through the countless variables of the coming encounter. Would we reach Yarik? Would he remember me? Would he keep us as hostages? Would he care at all about the dark clouds over Berm?

  Regardless of who we ended up in front of, I knew a thing or two about magic, Chaukai, and druids I could bargain with to keep us alive.

  All that mattered, was that I’d put Yarik’s army between myself and Geart. The thick layers of their cordons and patrols, I hoped, would prove a more substantial obstacle for the shambling caribou than the swamps.

  We reached the breastworks of a massive camp, and survived inspection by a captain and then a colonel. The matron knew both by name, so the carriage rolled on. The camp was immense, and the place we finally stopped was surrounded by tall yellow linen walls that flapped in the breeze and hid both the sights and sounds of the camp. Three tents filled the immense space, and we were ordered out and ushered into the smallest of the trio.

  The matron moved us straight through the space, skipped both the food and bath there, and hurried us into largest tent.

  The wide space was a gloomy version of a Deyalu apartment, layered in rugs and pillows. Yarik sat in the center at an empty desk lit by two lantern stands on either side. I’d never seen a lonelier figure in all my life.

  He looked up but seemed not to see us.

  “Which of my cousins thinks me depraved enough to lay with a Bermish mother?”

  The matron began to tremble and let go of my arm.

  “Lord Yarik, this is not Dagoda’s usual faire. I present to you Dia Yentif, wife of your brother Barok and their two infant children.”

  His eyes stared into mine. His chin didn’t jerk, his chest didn’t puff out. He sat back instead and looked exhausted. “You made a mistake bringing her to me.”

  “You have gold enough to compensate me for snatching her here to you, assuredly?”

  “Compensate you? You think me in charge here? My cousins will open your throat for not bringing her to them first. Run away and see if you can make it out of here alive.”

  She yelped and fled as fast as her skirts would allow. Burhn looked ready to do something foolish but Ghemma took his arm and sat with him upon a pair of low pillows.

  I eased across, adjusted my sleeping darlings, and sat opposite Yarik and his barren desk.

  He didn’t move. He stared across as if someone stood behind him, yelling at him to be still. He was in a cage as terrible as the one his father had raised him in—perhaps as terrible as the one I had been raised in. Of all the scenarios I’d contemplated, none included feelings of sympathy.

  The carriage from Dagoda’s rum
bled away and the sound disturbed him. He was slow to see me. “Dia.”

  “Yes, Yarik. This is Cavim, and this is Clea. They are your niece and your nephew. Would you like to hold them?”

  The tortured man blinked and twitched. “Niece and nephew? Barok’s children?”

  “Yes, would you like to hold them?”

  He took a deep breath as though he was waking from a bad dream but did not believe it. “Of the million impossible things that have happened this year—I cannot—why are you here?”

  “Yarik, I need your help.”

  “You need me?”

  “Hessier terrors from the Bunda-Hith have been unleashed. I flee from them now. I need your help to get across the river.”

  He shook his head. “Nothing gets across. Rahan has a dream witch that can read our thoughts. Every boat we’ve sent has been sunk.”

  “But you will help get us to the river.”

  “Help? I’ve been no help to anyone.” He scratched at the scars Barok had given him and stared at Cavim. Something of a smile tried to appear.

  “You have a son, too?” I asked.

  “Yes. Almost two now, I think. I’ve never met him though. He’s in Escandi, maybe. Or Rundi.” He continued to trace his scars. “I didn’t mean for Barok’s mother to die. Could you possibly believe me? I remember both of them, my mother and his I mean. They would walk together with us. They were good friends. Barok would always run away and throw things at the swans. I walked with them in the sunshine, holding both of their hands.” He took another terrible breath and looked at me again. “I almost killed you, too, didn’t I?”

  “You tried very hard. I’m clever though.”

  “So many people died when you got away. Half the Deyalu’s servants vanished the next morning. It took days to replace them all.”

  “You didn’t mean for that to happen either.”

  “Didn’t I? I think maybe I did.”

  There was not much left of him. I kept very still and searched for a way to win his help, but it was a dance across a cracking sheet of ice.

  “Sing to him,” Ghemma said.

  Yarik’s head came around as if he’s not known she was there. He stood up out of his chair ready to yell, and all at once my throat burned as my noun broiled up out of me as though I was Barok drawing his sword.

  flesh man sapphire breast birch wolf raven rabbit maple water

  Yarik fell back into his chair as I repeated the verse, over and over. His eyes shimmered with a light that came from me. My ears growled with thunder. Ghemma took my children into her arms and crossed with them to Yarik. I sang and sang while Ghemma handed my children to him. She stroked his face as he cried, looking from my son to my daughter. Clea began to glow blue and Cavim red. Yarik stood up, his eyes clear and urgent.

  “Dia, stop.”

  But, I could not—would not stop. Never would I let the song go!

  Burhn was there then, his ears bleeding. He sang with me but put the words out of order. I stumbled on them and my song crashed to a halt.

  Yarik’s eyes were tearing and he blinked blood that ran fast into his white. He seemed not to care and was looking into Cavim’s eyes when he sang a word of his own.

  water

  He collapsed back into the chair. Ghemma propped him up and rescued the children while Burhn snatched my arm to keep me from toppling over.

  Blood was everywhere. From my nose, I think, and Burhn’s ears, and Yarik’s eyes.

  “They will kill you all,” Yarik said. “You must flee.”

  “Help us.”

  He searched the room, but that day was not a good one for him to learn how to be clever. I could trust him, though, and that was enough.

  I leaned across the table. “Priests will come. Take credit for the song.”

  “But I didn’t sing it all.”

  “You learned enough. We will hide here amongst the pillows. When they come, sing your word at them and make them leave. Yell like it’s the good old days.”

  “Then what?”

  “Just that for now. Get ready.”

  I could hear the yelling outside and pulled my companions behind a sedan full of pillows and draped us with a throw.

  “Get out,” Yarik yelled at the first man who enter and something, likely a chair, smashed against one of the heavy tent posts.

  “We heard a song. Where did it come from?”

  “From me,” Yarik yelled as then screamed the song at them.

  WATER WATER WATER

  He howled in pain and triumph. He threw things at them as only a Yentif could, and the tent became as silent as when we’d entered.

  We eased out of hiding. Men still prowled beyond the tent, but none were moving to enter that I could hear. Yarik was sitting cross legged on the floor. The desk was split in two. Chairs and sedans had been flung in every direction.

  “Are you alright?” I asked.

  “That hurts a lot.” Blood was smeared across his face, neck, and the top of the broken desk, yet he wore a smile from ear to ear. “Now what?”

  It was the same grin Barok wore on his happiest days. He had the same hair and the same bright teeth.

  What had been the difference between the two of them, all those days ago, if any?

  I offered him my hand and helped him up. “Call for a carriage with a small boat. Tell them you know how to kill Rahan’s witch and need to get to the water’s edge.”

  “Yes. What fun. Get under cover. I will whistle when it is safe to come out.”

  Then he ran outside, hollering at the top of his voice.

  “You trust him?” Burhn said.

  “I must and I do. Get back under here, now.”

  We hid while Yarik yelled. A carriage rolled in and he screamed at the drivers and bodymen until they fled him.

  He whistled his father’s birthday song, and we hurried out to find him standing in the driver’s box with the reins in hand and whip at the ready. A small boat had been lashed across the top of the cabin.

  “Inside,” he said and we’d barely managed to get the door closed before we were off.

  The camp around us was a chaos of screaming men and horses.

  “Get out of my way!” Yarik howled, “I’m going to kill the witch!”

  Our pace was beyond hazardous and we struggled to keep the cabin door shut as we bounced along. Ghemma curled into a ball clutching the children, and all Burhn and I could do was press her into the seat to keep her from bouncing onto through the thin doors or onto the floor.

  Then Yarik worked the brake and called the horses to slow. We came to rest with the carriage pitched left and forward.

  “Get back you, all of you,” Yarik howled. “I’ve terrible magic in me. It will kill you all!”

  Men screamed and fled him. The door opened onto a sloped and muddy shoreline. Yarik jammed his head inside. “Who wants to sing with me?”

  We blinked at him, and I said, “We don’t know a song that can kill Rahan’s witch.”

  “I know that,” he said with a terrible laugh. “I want to sing something big and colorful, like last time. Something to make them stand back from me for once and bow to me for real.”

  “Of course.”

  We follow him out onto the slope above the muddy beach. The air was full of gnats and the mist of recent rain. It was a lake, not a river.

  “Where is the city?”

  “There. Rahan damned the river and flooded everything. The entire Priests’ Quarter has been underwater since autumn. You can see the ruins of the Tanayon poking up there. He’s a fucking murderer, that one. Be careful with him. Can we sing now?”

  I could not manage it, but Ghemma’s voice rose as if a bird on the wing. A sharp heat rose with it that knocked the insects out of the air and blasted away the mists. Her many hundreds of nouns blazed away, splashing the clouds above with color. Yarik strained to hear it, and he flinched three times as words bit their way in before he fell to his knees. My skull felt smashed, and I hit the groun
d next to Yarik.

  Burhn took Ghemma into his arms and stopped her song with a kiss. She swooned and kissed him back with furious passion before realizing the bundles squish between them. She kissed the children upon the forehead and fell onto her rump with a thump in the mud.

  Burhn hurried to the carriage, untied the boat, and dragged it toward the shore.

  Yarik was chucking through his pain. He poked my arm and laughed as though he’d told a joke.

  His grand smile tugged a laugh up from me as well, and we helped each other up.

  “Come with us,” I said.

  “Could I? How fantastic a notion. But, no. Rahan would take my head the moment I crossed. Go. I’ll keep them busy.”

  “You are your mother’s son, Yarik Yentif.”

  “Botten. That was her name.”

  “Yarik Botten, I am Dia Vesteal,” I said and offered him my hand. He kissed it before his nervousness had not scratching at the blood dripping from his ear and eyes.

  Burhn tapped me on the shoulder. “No paddles. Just a boat.”

  “Ha!” Yarik shouted, before he raced back up to the carriage, yanked the cabin door off its hinges, and punched at the lattice and boards until he’d split it in two down the middle.

  “Here,” he said, handed them to Burhn as though it was the cleverest thing he’d ever done. Perhaps it was.

  “Farewell, Yarik.”

  “Tell Barok I am sorry. He won’t believe you, but tell him anyway.”

  “I will.”

  He turned then and started toward the men and priest who would be on the way. We pushed out onto the darkening waters of Lake Rahan, and made good use of Yarik’s parting gift.

  71

  King Barok Vesteal

  The 70th of Spring

  The road beyond Bessradi’s west gate was a dusty cloud from my fast-arriving army.

  “The children are close,” Leger said while Evela and the rest gathered with me in a storied park north of the Iron Arsenal. The information was welcome but not new. He and the rest of the soul-irons had been burning steadily brighter since we entered the city, and powerful magic had been banging away at Chaukai ears throughout the night. If it wasn’t for the rivers and the damned lake, I would have sent them charging in every direction. Instead, I waited on my brother Rahan to emerge and explain himself.