Unclean

by A. M. Manay

  Silas drew his own and fired several flares into the sky. No one took any note of it at first, assuming it was a celebratory gesture rather than an attempt to light up a field of battle.

  “Did you see where it came from?” Silas asked.

  “No. It hit me in the back. Did you see?” Shiloh asked, peering into the night.

  “There!” he cried. He pointed with his wand and gave it a flick. A running figure tumbled into the dirt a few dozen yards away. He appeared to be headed for the river. Silas rose to approach the man, who turned out to be a mere boy.

  “Careful!” Shiloh warned. “There could be more.” She reinforced her wards and tried to cover her husband.

  The boy who had attacked them lay in a twisted pile of limbs in the dirt, dazed but otherwise unharmed.

  “Explain yourself,” Silas growled.

  The boy’s only reply was to try to spit in Silas’s face.

  “Fine,” Silas snarled. “Have it your way.”

  He dragged the boy back into the center of the celebration, where Keegan sat drinking and laughing and holding court. Silas threw the boy at his chief’s feet.

  “This little miscreant just attacked your daughter,” Silas reported in a loud voice. “Hexed her in the back from the cover of night. I doubt it was his own idea, given his youth. If she weren’t so careful with her wards and charms, she might not be standing here now.”

  The boisterous crowd quieted upon seeing the look on Keegan’s face.

  “What is going on, Liroh? Why would you do such a thing, and on Solstice?” Keegan demanded in a dangerously soft voice.

  Liroh scowled, refusing to answer until Keegan gave him a swift kick. “She don’t belong here! None of ‘em do!” the boy cried.

  “And who told you that? Who told you to attack my child?” Keegan growled.

  “I did!” Olin cried, stepping out of the crowd. They drew away from him, as though fearful he might be contagious.

  “They’re coming for her, the crown and the church. Coming for the freak, and Keegan knows it,” Olin proclaimed. “They’ve offered us land, power, gold. And he refuses for love of a girl who isn’t even one of us. He’d risk their armies trapping us in this valley. He chooses her over his own people! She killed eight of our own in Smoke Valley! Or have you all forgotten?”

  “She saved us from the fever!” someone cried from the crowd, setting off murmurs of agreement.

  “I assume there is a large payment in it for you if you facilitate this betrayal,” Silas said in a voice made of ice.

  “So what if there is? She isn’t really one of us,” Olin spat back. “Keegan should have taken their offer.”

  “It was you,” Shiloh accused, certainty in her voice. “You killed Loor. You sent the poisoned soup. They paid you for that, too, did they?” Murmurs spread through the crowd. “Or were you trying to murder me or my father?”

  Olin tried to deny it, but his face betrayed his nerves, and the crowd began to hiss.

  “If you wanted to be the leader of the Free,” Keegan growled, “then you should have had the courage to challenge me openly instead of skulking around in the dark, poisoning an infant, sending a child to kill a woman in secret. You should have asked the elders to call an election. But you know they won’t agree without cause. So you scheme and plot in the shadows like a filthy courtier! Like a Citizen.”

  “I challenge you by combat, then!” Olin declared. “I only need twelve people to concur for that, and they don’t have to be elders. If you lose, then an election is required. Who will support my challenge?”

  “You’re not well yet,” Gret whispered urgently to Keegan. “You can’t!”

  A dozen of the young men lined up next to Olin, his friends, troublemakers all, Shiloh would have wagered. Gret closed her eyes in dismay. The elders clucked in disapproval.

  “You could choose a champion, couldn’t you?” Silas reminded Keegan. “You’re only just out of your sickbed. Or put it off until tomorrow, at least, when no one is drunk.”

  “I could whip this pup in my sleep and six deep in my cups,” Keegan retorted. He drew his wand. Gret and Barr embraced him. Shiloh, to her own surprise, crossed to do the same.

  A ring formed around the two men. Someone created a ward dome so that stray curses would not escape into the crowd, and so no one could interfere.

  “Is this to the death?” Shiloh whispered to Barr, her hand at her mouth.

  “Not usually. But Olin is mean as a snake,” Barr replied. His mouth twisted in distaste. “If one yields, that is supposed to be the end of it. They shake hands, and the elders call the election if Keegan is the one who yields. Which, of course, he never has.”

  “I don’t see either of them yielding,” Shiloh said.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I think Olin is a coward at heart. He’ll yield rather than die,” Silas assured her.

  Shiloh watched through her fingers. Olin had the advantage of youth and strength, but Keegan had him on experience, skill, and knowledge. She watched her first father perform familiar curses as well as ones she had never even heard of, his extensive repertoire battering his less-educated opponent. Olin’s clothes were soon in tatters, and Shiloh could see familiar hex marks blooming red and purple on the skin beneath.

  She swallowed her gorge as she realized that Keegan had likely instructed her mother in the use of a good number of the curses that plagued so many of her nights. Olin must be in agony, she thought, feeling some sympathy for the repulsive young man for the first time.

  At last, Olin staggered and fell to his knees. Keegan disarmed him, catching the young man’s wand in his hand and snapping it in half with no visible effort. The crowd cheered with relief, save for Olin’s closest compatriots.

  “Yield,” Keegan told him, his voice almost gentle in comparison to his stormy expression.

  For a moment, Shiloh thought Olin would refuse. At last, he nodded, and the crowd cheered again.

  Shiloh put her hand on her wand, intending to offer to help Jonn tend to the injuries both men had sustained. When the ward dome flickered away, she strode toward her father to check on him. A crowd of well-wishers offering their congratulations began to press in. From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of some movement. Turning, she saw Olin pull a spare wand from his boot, his face twisted with hatred as he pointed it at Keegan’s back.

  With a cry, she aimed her own weapon and stepped in front of her father. Curses crackled through the air. When they were spent, Olin lay insensible in the mud. His friends readied for a fight but thought better of it, dropping their wands in the face of the crowd’s evident ire. Shaking, Shiloh looked down at herself, searching for a wound and finding none.

  Slowly, she turned to find a heartbreaking scene. Olin’s curse had gone wide, his aim thrown off by Shiloh’s own hex. A boy lay in Keegan’s lap, grotesquely twitching while Jonn chanted a countercurse with little hope in his eyes. Shiloh realized, with a gasp of horror, that the victim was young Boggan, Silas’s half-brother whom Barr had rescued from Fenroh’s press gang.

  Silas met her at the boy’s side, once he had ascertained that Olin and his men were well in hand. “You’ve got the wrong countercurse, Jonny,” he said gently. “This is an obscure one, from the shores of Dessica.”

  Silas began his own effort to save the boy, Jonn catching on quickly and adding his voice. Shiloh, Keegan, and Gret joined in as they learned the spell through his repetition. Gradually, the seizures eased, and the boy’s breathing became steadier.

  “Let’s get him up to the hospital,” Jonn said. “I want to examine him more closely.”

  Shiloh watched them carry Boggan off, her hand clasped tightly across her mouth and tears pouring down her face. Silas placed a hand on her lower back to steady her.

  “I think he’ll be all right,” he assured her. “We stopped the seizures quickly. At his young age, I doubt there will be permanent damage. But that curse could certainly have killed your father, or even you.”

&nb
sp; “I didn’t think about what could happen with the crowd, I just thought to stop him—I was so stupid—”

  Silas cut off her remonstrations. “You did nothing wrong. Who knows how many you saved? Olin could have begun a rampage. He wouldn’t have stopped at one curse. And losing Keegan, in addition to causing you grief, would have destabilized the Free to a dangerous degree. You acted entirely properly.” He shook his head. “We all should have been watching Olin more closely. We already knew he was a cheater.”

  “What will happen to him? To his men?” Shiloh asked. She could see them in the distance, being led to a stockade she hadn’t yet seen used.

  Silas shrugged. “The Free know three punishments: death, pain, and exile. They’ll be tried by a jury of three, and the verdict is carried out immediately. At least, that’s how I saw it done during the war.”

  “Remember when you told me that some men need killing?” Shiloh asked, eyes hard.

  “Aye,” Silas nodded. “It’s a thought I have often.”

  Shiloh pointed with her chin. “Olin’s one of them.”

  “We found a magic mirror when we searched his home,” Keegan shared. “In the morning, we will get the schedule out of him for when he makes contact. We need to decide whether to confront his master, or whether to let him wonder if Olin has been caught without knowing for sure.”

  The night was mostly spent. The Solstice festivities had been cut short by the violence, and the cliff village was almost ominously quiet. Shiloh had grown accustomed to the buzzing of the hive, voices and noises carrying through the ventilation shafts and hallways of the warren. But now, in the wee hours, and with conspiracy in the air, the place felt dead as a tomb.

  In Keegan’s sitting room, however, the lanterns still burned, and the conversation around her had the intensity of a war council.

  “I would like to know who sent him, whether it is Fenroh or the crown, but if we don't recognize the person on the other end, it will do little good to let them see that Olin was caught,” Shiloh pointed out.

  “We could have Barr be the face,” Keegan suggested. “The rest of us listen, hidden and silent. He could claim to be one of Olin’s people, claim Olin had had a mishap, try to draw the contact out, get further orders. The contact won't be likely to recognize Barr.”

  “That's not a bad plan,” Silas allowed.

  “Thanks ever so much,” Keegan said, rolling his eyes.

  “Regardless of how this plays out, I think we must prepare ourselves for the likelihood that someone’s men will come to the Teeth in force once the roads are passable in the spring. If they were intent on eliminating contenders for the crown, they will be unlikely to stop with the job only half-done,” Silas warned.

  “If that is what they were really up to. Maybe Olin was simply intent on killing Keegan to secure his own advancement,” Shiloh replied.

  “I might think so, if it weren't for the mirror. In the morning, perhaps we can discover more. We should try to sleep,” Silas suggested.

  Shiloh nodded and rose to her feet, and they said their goodbyes. They made their careful way back to their apartment, eyes alert for danger, lest they find out too late that Olin was not the only snake in their midst.

  A Mirror

  Edmun sat behind his enormous desk, Silas behind him at a smaller one. Keegan stood in the opposite corner, watching. A prisoner sat facing Edmun in a heavy chair, bound hand and foot.

  Edmun asked a question. The man refused to answer. Silas covered his ears against the screaming and stared at the unfortunate young man, slipping into his thoughts and looking for the information his master wanted, knowing that the sooner he found it, the sooner this horror show would be over.

  Once he had what he was looking for, he began jotting down the information, and Edmun lowered his wand. Once Silas was finished, he raised his head, and Edmun asked another question.

  All the while, Keegan watched, never taking his eyes off of Silas Hatch’s boyish face.

  When the guards finally took their victim away, hanging limply in their arms, Silas handed Edmun his notes, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes, exhausted.

  “You’ve got yourself quite a little hatchet there, Edmun,” Keegan observed. “He splits them open like a summer melon. You don’t even need them to ever answer out loud, do you?”

  Alarmed, Silas sat bolt upright, the front legs of his chair hitting the floor with a crash.

  Edmun eyed Keegan coldly. “You breathe a word about this child’s gift to anyone, and I will skin you alive.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Keegan replied, equally icy. “Come on, Silas. Let’s get you something to eat, wash the taste of this out of your mouth.”

  Silas darted a look at Edmun, who nodded, and he followed the Feral general out of the room.

  “You all right, son?” Keegan asked.

  Silas nodded. “It wasn’t exactly the first time,” he confessed.

  Keegan snorted. “I bet it wasn’t.”

  They walked out into the courtyard together, and the smell of roasting meat made Silas’s stomach growl.

  “Give the Hatchet, here, some food, will you?”

  “I want to question him,” Silas told Keegan just after dawn. He’d snuck out while Shiloh still slept behind a firmly locked and warded door. Fortunately, he’d found Gret and Keegan already up and at the breakfast table.

  “Question him or torture him?” Keegan replied, with an expression that implied that either was an acceptable answer.

  “I see no reason not to do both,” Silas admitted.

  “Good. I was just coming to get you, figuring two monsters are more frightening than one. Have you eaten?”

  Silas shook his head.

  “Here,” Gret said, pressing a hunk of cheese and an apple into his hands. She smiled. “You need some tea, too, by the look of you. Maybe with some shine in it. Did you sleep at all?”

  He looked down at the food and back up to her face. “Very little. I thank you for easing my hunger pangs. Shall we, Chief?”

  Keegan stood a bit stiffly.

  “Still recovering from your epic battle?” Silas asked with sympathy.

  Keegan glared, then ruefully shook his head. “Don’t ever get old,” he advised. “It is highly unpleasant. If that fool had waited a few more years to confront me, he’d have won.”

  “I doubt it. Someone else, perhaps, but Olin doesn’t seem that bright. Too much brute force, not enough knowledge of dark magic,” Silas said.

  “Well, I do believe that’s the greatest compliment you’ve ever paid me, Hatch,” Keegan replied, rolling his eyes.

  Soon, they approached the paddock where Olin and his men had been made to spend a cold night. The boy who had attacked Shiloh looked younger by the morning light, but no less defiant. Silas could conjure up little pity.

  With his wand, Silas picked the boy up and held him against the fence. “If you had been more successful,” Silas hissed, “you would no longer be breathing.”

  He dropped the boy to the ground and pointed at Olin. The guards pulled Olin out of the enclosure and threw him to the ground, locking the gate behind them.

  Silas shook the wand in his hand. Electric blue fire danced in the early morning light.

  “It’s been a while since I’ve really hurt anyone,” he commented. “I wonder if I remember how.”

  Olin’s scream rang out.

  “Apparently, I do,” Silas observed with an icy smile.

  “Apparently, you do,” Keegan concurred, his eyes merciless. “How long have you been working for the crown? Or are you working for the Patriarch’s son instead?”

  “Go to the devil,” Olin snarled.

  Silas flicked his wand, and their captive writhed on the ground.

  “Try again, Olin.” Silas sighed.

  “Who poisoned the soup, Olin?” Keegan asked. “And who was the intended victim?”

  Another refusal led to another curse.

  “How much did they pay you
, Olin?” Keegan asked.

  “They didn’t have to pay me nothin’!” Olin screamed. “I’d’a killed all of ya for free. You, your woman, your freak of a daughter, and the whore queen’s whelp.”

  “But they did pay you,” Silas ventured. “And you still took it.”

  “’Course I did. Who wouldn’t?” Olin spat.

  “Who delivered the soup?” Silas asked. “Who prepared it?”

  “I ain’t snitchin’ on my own men,” Olin declared.

  Silas rolled his eyes and cast another hex. He bent close to the contorting prisoner and whispered, “Want to know a secret, Olin? You don’t have to.” Silas winked and stood.

  “Your contact with the crown. Name him. Or her,” Silas demanded.

  “I don’t know. They just leave me letters in certain spots,” Olin claimed.

  “And the magic mirror?” Silas pressed. “Whom will we find on the other end of that? When do you make regular contact?”

  Olin blanched but said not a word. Silas made him scream again.

  “Which of your men knew of your plan with the soup?” Silas asked. He flicked his wand around his fingers like an idle student playing with a pen. Every time its point fell in Olin’s general direction, the man flinched.

  “Burn in hell,” Olin whispered.

  “Very likely,” Silas replied over the resulting screaming. He casually examined his fingernails.

  “Mind if I take a turn?” Keegan inquired.

  “Not at all. My hand is starting to cramp a bit,” Silas replied.

  They proceeded together in this vein until Olin lay semiconscious and bleeding on the frost-covered grass.

  When the guards opened the gate once more, the looks of defiance on the faces of Olin’s comrades had been replaced with desperation.

  One of them shook his head, claiming, “I backed him on his challenge, but I knew nothing about any poison.”

  With that, the dam had broken, and protestations began pouring out of nearly every mouth.

  Silas held up a hand, then pointed at Liroh. “One at a time. We’ll start with you. And your mother, since she prepared the soup.”