“Joke?”
Nona trudged back. “Why would we wait here?”
“I am meeting someone.”
Nona scanned the white expanse around them. “A snowman?”
Zole frowned. “I do not—”
“It was a joke, Zole!”
Zole’s frown deepened. “Are jokes not supposed to make people—”
“Just tell me who we’re meeting!”
Zole pursed her lips and squinted into the middle distance. “Tarkax Ice-Spear.”
“Tarkax?” Nona blinked.
“Yes.”
“Tarkax as in Tarkax who worked at the Caltess? Tarkax who was supposed to be protecting us when Raymel Tacsis came to kill me on the ranging?” Nona supposed that the man was an ice-triber at least, but the idea of meeting anyone in this wilderness was hard to believe in, let alone someone she knew.
“Yes.”
“It doesn’t look as if he’s coming.” Nona made a slow circle, calling on her clarity. “How would he find us in all this anyway?”
“We have a shadow-link. He can locate us more easily if we remain in one place.”
“Ah.” Nona hadn’t seen Tarkax since the day she killed Raymel Tacsis. Clera had stuck Tarkax with a pin coated in lock-up venom. Nona guessed that the incident had been somewhat of a blot on the warrior’s reputation.
For a while only the wind spoke.
“How long are we going to wait?” Nona had grown steadily colder and she had been cold to start with. At least walking generated some heat.
“Not long now.”
“You can sense him?”
“I can see them.”
“Them?” Nona followed the direction of Zole’s gaze. She saw nothing but white. Her clarity had introduced a few more shades into the icescape but it was still just a palette of ice and snow.
“Wait.”
Nona waited, staring until her eyes began to swim. She still saw nothing. “I don’t—”
“Hello, novices!” A man’s voice calling from somewhere to her left.
Nona spun around. Tarkax was about fifty yards from her, approaching at the head of a group of six other tribesmen, all in white furs, near invisible even if Nona had been looking in the right direction. “You tricked me into looking the wrong way!” Nona shot a scowl at Zole.
The girl shrugged. “I thought you should know what a joke was.”
“Nona! The Caltess ring-fighter!” Tarkax’s cry forestalled any reply to Zole.
Nona nodded a greeting. The tribesmen gathered around as Tarkax drew Zole into a hug, which the girl tolerated with a long-suffering look. He released her and slapped her on the back before turning to Nona. “How are you enjoying the ice?”
“I’m not dead yet.”
“Ha!” Tarkax punched her shoulder, then returned his attention to Zole, unleashing a torrent of tribe-tongue. It sounded like a dozen questions all asked at once.
While Zole replied in the same guttural language Nona glanced around at the others. They stood impassive under her scrutiny, all with the same reddish skin tone and flat features that Tarkax and Zole displayed. In the Corridor a hundred shades mixed, remnants pressed together from all the lands and kingdoms that had once covered a whole world. On the ice, though, it seemed that the tribes had sprung from more singular sources, or that the harsh conditions whittled away at any not perfectly suited to survival. Nona noted that each carried a heavy pack and an array of tools hanging from their belts, fashioned from the black iron that the ice-tribes favoured for its reluctance to shatter when chilled. They returned her scrutiny with dark eyes, and Nona wondered how in the immensity of all this wilderness someone she and Zole both knew happened to be so very close . . .
Eventually Tarkax’s string of long questions and Zole’s series of short replies came to an end. Tarkax stamped his feet and frowned at Nona. “Well. We had better go, then.”
“Where?” Nona asked. “Can you guide us across the mountains?”
Tarkax snorted. “I wouldn’t wish that on a Pelarthi!” He stamped again. “My brother’s daughter has convinced me to show you a quicker way home.”
“Quicker than crossing the mountains? We have to cross them . . . they’re in the way!” Nona pointed west in case the miles of raw bedrock had somehow escaped the Ice-Spear’s attention. “Wait . . . Zole is your niece?”
“Am I not blessed?” Tarkax didn’t sound as if he felt blessed. Several of his companions snorted, their breath plumes streaming on the wind.
“But . . . why didn’t you look after her when she was orphaned?” New confusion mounted on the old.
“I could think of a thousand good reasons!” Tarkax said, to more snorts. “But the best answer is to note that my brother is still alive. Though with a wife like that I have no idea why he didn’t make his snow-bed long ago!”
“But . . .” Nona turned to stare at Zole. “You’re not an orphan?”
“Have I ever said that I was?”
“Well . . . no . . . but Sherzal . . .”
“You believe the emperor’s sister in this matter?” Zole raised an eyebrow.
“Fine!” Nona threw up her hands. “Why on Abeth were you with her, then?”
“Is that not obvious, Nona Grey?” Zole asked. “I have been spying on you.”
19
HOLY CLASS
Present Day
IN THE END Nona left it to Sister Kettle to inform Ara of her new appointment to guardian of the convent. Looking east from the cliffs of the Rock of Faith it seemed that all the width of the empire was aflame. Nona doubted that any of them would be returning from the defence of the Ark. She didn’t want her last words from Ara to be angry ones. And in truth she didn’t know how to say a last goodbye to her. Not without breaking.
Abbess Wheel gathered her war-party before the forest of pillars. Nona joined them to find the old woman shouting at someone.
“You are most certainly not coming! This is an open battle we’re walking into.”
“Hold my bag, Ruli, dear.” Sister Pan affected not to have heard the abbess.
“You are one hundred and two years old, Mali Glosis! I will not have you dying at the end of a Scithrowl arrow!” Wheel sounded as angry as Nona had ever heard her, but there was more to it than anger. An edge of fright . . . of distress perhaps.
“You don’t think I will be of use?” Sister Pan turned towards the abbess, rubbing her hand over her wrist stump.
“I don’t think you’ll make it the down from the Rock! You are over one hundred years old!”
“Heh!” Sister Pan waved the idea away. “I’ve a few tricks left in me yet.”
Nona agreed with Wheel. Sister Pan walked at a shuffle. Her eyesight was poor. There was no doubt that Pan knew everything there was to know about the Path. In the past few years she had taught Nona to do more than she ever thought was possible. But not once in all her time at Sweet Mercy had Nona ever seen her so much as touch the Path. Certainly she could walk to the hidden rooms and see the thread-scape . . . even pull a few when the need arose. But when it came to enduring the Path long enough to gather its power, that was a young person’s game. The fierce energies that coursed through a body on the Path would tear a frail old woman apart.
Abbess Wheel stamped her crozier. “Sister Pan—”
“Are we all here?” Pan peered around at the nuns. “Sister Oak, are you sure? Perhaps you should stay, dear?”
“Sister Pan!” Wheel roared. “I am giving you a direct order as your abbess. You will remain here at the convent!”
Sister Pan shook her head, smiling. “I’m Mistress Path, child. I go where I please.” And with that she began to shuffle towards the pillars.
* * *
• • •
THE WIND BLUSTERED around the departing war-party, the Corridor wind contemp
lating a reversal of direction and an ice-wind seeking to insert itself into the confusion. The stink of smoke gusted from the east and no doubt the Durns’ fires were drawing closer on the western front.
Their band held precious little of the strength that Sweet Mercy had been training for so many years. The bulk of the Red Sisters and the Grey had been sent ahead to war, some in the weeks and months before, some dispatched only hours earlier. Of the Grey only Sisters Apple, Kettle, and the newly appointed Sister Cauldron remained. Wheel’s force of Red Sisters was limited to Sisters Tallow, Iron, and Rock. Sister Pan was their only Mystic Sister and where the others might be no one could say. Thread-bonds were an invaluable means of communication and as Sister Tallow taught it, good communications were more help on the battlefield than a spare army. If Abbess Wheel had her way every Mystic Sister would be bound to every other, and Nona to every marjal too. However, without a significant degree of affection between the two parties such bonds were extraordinarily difficult to form, and impossible to sustain or endure. Much to the abbess’s annoyance.
Abbess Wheel led them down the Vinery Stair belting out the battle hymn of the Ancestor, the convent’s ancient banner snapping above her on a pole gripped by Sister Pail. The nuns formed the vanguard, novices behind. The shipheart sat in an iron casket on one of the carts used to transport wine barrels. Six novices pulled it using a long pole. Nona still burned with its aura. She had brought it up from the vaults using two laundry paddles but that was closer than she ever wanted to get to the thing again. The memory of its violet light tingled along her bones. The others couldn’t feel it the same way she did, but a sense of unease set in at around ten yards, becoming terror at three, and madness much closer than that.
Nona could feel Ara’s anger vibrating along their thread-bond but she kept a tight hold on the channel and refused to open a discussion. Ruli had said they gave Ara black-skin armour and an Ark-steel sword. Abbess’s orders. Ara was a Jotsis, after all, even if a nun was supposed to have no family. Nona took comfort in that. Ara would survive. There would be time for recrimination and apology if Nona also lived to see the week out. And if not, perhaps the thread-bond might offer a moment for goodbye if whatever blow took her life was not instantly fatal. There might also be a moment for honesty. To let Ara know truths that Nona barely admitted to herself. With Regol it had been easy for there had been no friendship at stake that might have been ruined with the wrong words. With Ara that friendship had always been too precious to risk with the admission that Nona wanted more.
They marched on singing the hymn into the wind.
“I’ve never even seen a Scithrowl,” Sister Oak muttered into a pause between verses. She was marching between Nona and Kettle and looked as if she would much rather be watching over Red Class. Nona doubted Oak had held a sword since she had taken holy orders over twenty years before.
“Don’t worry, Sister Oak, Sister Cage has seen hundreds and lived to tell the tale.” Kettle grinned across at Nona.
“I have.” Nona didn’t mention that she’d had Zole with her all the while and that they’d spent the whole time running away or hiding.
At the top of the Vinery Stair Nona turned to see if Sister Pan had given up or fallen behind yet.
“Holy Ancestor!” Nona stopped dead.
“What?” Ruli and Alata turned with her.
Sister Pan was sitting on the barrel cart with one arm resting on the shipheart’s casket, apparently untroubled.
“Keep it moving!” Sister Rock scowled back at them. Beside her Sister Mop managed a small smile. Ruli and Alata turned, pushing an amazed Nona onwards.
The plateau’s arms formed an alcove where the convent vineyard was able to catch the sun while sheltering from the wind. The Vinery Stair wound a gentle gradient high above rows of grapevines offering a limited view to the south. Having lost three quarters of its elevation, the track rounded the northern arm of the alcove and suddenly the destruction at their doorstep was revealed. Farmhouses, upon which Nona had rested her eyes countless times across the years, now vomited flame towards the sky. Others were now nothing more than charred patches of ground, trailing smoke. She hurried to join Ketti near the front of the nuns, astonished at how quickly the destruction had been wrought, and within sight of both the convent and the city walls.
Abbess Wheel’s song halted abruptly at the scene and silence reigned while they rounded the last turn that brought them to the turnpike gate near the end of the track. Ahead of Nona the abbess turned the corner and stopped in her tracks. Nona found herself pressed against Wheel’s back and struggling to prevent the nuns behind from knocking them both flat. A Scithrowl war-band was advancing in the opposite direction, a dozen foot soldiers in chain-mail vests, padded armour on their arms and legs, stained with soot and blood. They came in three ranks of four, the first row shouldering long spears, the next with greatswords at their backs and shorter blades on both hips. Behind them four archers. A skirmish band out to kill and burn. No doubt Adoma sought to goad the emperor’s forces to leave the city and protect his peasants. Crucical would of course allow no such thing. On open ground the Scithrowl numbers would make a slaughter of his soldiers.
Where every other sister paused, Sisters Tallow and Iron, who had been flanking the abbess, kept walking. They drew steel from their scabbards, fast enough to make it sing. Two of the Scithrowl first rank, startled by the unexpected encounter, were too slow to lower their spears. The nuns wove past the thrusts of the other two spearmen. A heartbeat later they were among the foe, three Scithrowl collapsing behind them while a fourth tumbled from the outer edge of the track. The soldiers with greatswords reached for shorter blades and died before taking a swing. Two of the archers managed to run. Tallow and Iron both took up spears from the fallen. Tallow hefted her weapon, taking a moment to appreciate its balance and weight, and launched it before either archer had made it fifty yards. Iron’s spear gave chase and both struck their targets between the shoulder blades. The soldiers’ mail prevented them from being transfixed, but both fell, badly hurt.
Iron reached the two fallen archers first. One of the Scithrowl raised her hand for quarter. She received a quick death, the sweetest mercy on offer.
Abbess Wheel led her flock through the carnage, pausing only to recite St. Hedgemon’s Cursed Is the Heretic over the corpses. Many of the Holy Sisters paled as they passed the fallen. Ugly wounds gaping, the stink of death too ripe and real to ignore. The novices, closer to their training, seemed more composed, though Jula did retch once. Nona glanced across at Joeli, stepping over a man whose head lay at an odd angle, neck half-severed. At least her smug little smile had vanished.
Looking back, Nona saw that Apple had stopped among the dead with Kettle and Cauldron, all three of them tugging armour and clothes from corpses.
“You were up all night reading that book, Jula?” Nona asked, dropping back a few steps to walk beside her.
“Ssssh!” Jula motioned for Nona to keep her voice down, eye-pointing towards Joeli.
“Did you find anything good?” Nona moved closer.
“I found out that I would have spent the time better practising with an axe.” Jula swapped the weapon in question from her left shoulder to her right.
“Wasn’t there anything useful in there?”
Jula made a sigh that turned into a yawn. “There’s a lot in there. Aquinas seemed pretty confident about it all. But without seeing the parts of the Ark he claims to be describing I’ve no way of knowing if it’s all a fever dream. And even if it makes any sense at all to someone inside the Ark sanctum, it still doesn’t mean that any of it would actually work.”
“You didn’t bring the book with you, did you?” Nona asked.
“Of course not. You told me to hide it. I memorized what I thought was most important . . . Though I should have stuffed it under my habit. It’s good and thick. Could probably stop an arrow!”
&
nbsp; Nona glanced at Joeli once more, now closer to them and feigning indifference, then returned to her place behind Wheel.
* * *
• • •
ON THE RUTLAND Road leading into Verity they joined an almost continuous line of wagons, carts, ragged soldiers, worn travellers, whole villages afoot, driving the flocks before them. Despite the crowding a sizable space opened up around the convent cart and its iron casket. People moved out of the way whether there was room or not, and lingered behind with troubled expressions.
A battalion from the Seventh Army under General Jalsis was stationed in and around a large commandeered farmhouse close to the road. Possibly the plan had been to oversee the safety of incoming refugees, though the place looked more like a field hospital now, treating casualties from ongoing skirmishes out across the nearby fields.
Abbess Wheel began the battle hymn again and the sisters joined in. Many of those on the road took up the song and it seemed to lift them. For a moment Nona felt a pang of sadness at the thought that Clera would have liked this part. She was always proud of her voice. Their friendship had fallen into pieces and now the world seemed to be doing the same thing. Nona only hoped that, as with Clera, some element of what had been precious would survive.
Things grew more chaotic the closer they got to Verity. The officer that General Wensis had appointed to direct their efforts was called away by a senior officer to join a small group of cavalry. They galloped off towards the north gates, trampling crops and leaping hedges. A vast wave of smoke rose from the east of the city, subsuming the smoke of all the lesser fires. Nona knew a great battle must be raging but even though the nuns had dropped their song she could hear nothing save the wind, the creak and rattle of carts, and the worried complaints of peasants. It amazed her that things had come to this so swiftly, but Sister Tallow had often said when teaching the lessons of war that a defence could hold and hold and suddenly, like a dam collapsing, be swept away with little warning.
They passed bodies by the roadside, peasants, farm labourers, travellers, some hewn down by sword or axe, some studded with arrow shafts, some blackened and burned. Not all were dead but any that weren’t at least crawling towards the city were surely dying.
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