Steelflower in Snow

by Lilith Saintcrow

  The Skaialan do not sing of Kalburn at night. It is as well, for they know nothing, those giants, of what we truly accomplished, my s’tarei and me.

  Steep-pitched, icy roofs, far colder than any winter thiefwalk in Antai or Shaitush or any of the great Hain cities upon the Rim. The trick is to stay below the ridgeline, to rob any follower or opponent of your silhouette, and to, as far as you can, cut across the slope instead of climbing or descending it. It is, I will not deny, easier when you have a s’tarei whose step is light, and a breath of Power or two to help your boots stick. What also helped were the maps Emrath had let me study, each quarter of the Old City drawn in painstaking detail. They were for tax purposes, those great sheets of pounded rag-paper, but for those six nights of the Great Siege of Kalburn while the wind brought fresh cargoes of snow and keened at every edge, while those on guard were dragged inside to be revived with ale and vigorous slapping, they were my faithful friends. For a long time after I could close my eyes and trace routes across their inked spaces, flashes filling internal vision—a particular crumbling roof that held us while D’ri, anchored by my grip upon the back of his jacket, leaned far out to send an arrow into a Ferulaine watchman’s throat; an alley we slithered into to dart across a narrow, filth-crusted street and through a shattered door, a knife blooming in a guard’s throat and the squad of Skaialan bravos inside dying as they huddled in their furs or struggled out of cold-induced nightmares, my foot flicking out to tip a brazier’s cargo of burning blackrock onto one who began to scream as his oily bed-hides turned to flame-blossoms; the long sweep along one side of the Great Market of Kalburn, any stalls that could not be dragged away lashed tightly together, its great open expanse lit with flickering bonfires and D’ri choosing targets one, two, three by their leaping light.

  No, they do not truly sing of Kalburn’s siege at night. Instead, they sing of how Kroth’s anger sent shadows and ghosts among the Ferulaine, sowing death where they willed. By the third dawn, when D’ri and I climbed hand-over-hand up a knotted rope and gained the safety of a keep window-casement left unlocked for us, spilling into the room beyond with grateful groans, there had already been much of it, and much confusion to harvest.

  By the fourth, the inhabitants of the Old City had begun to take matters into their own hands as well. By day, the Ferulaine swaggered almost up to the walls of the Keep. By night, however, by ones and twos, they disappeared. Bodies thumped into the street. They began to avoid guard duty, and that made it easier to slip about unseen and to take them in larger batches—for example, stopping a chimney to smoke them into the street where they could be picked off almost at will.

  I had learned well the lessons of the Plains. A few Danhai could turn an entire battalion of Shainakh regulars into nerve-strung idiots jumping at every sibilant breath through the choygrass. It does not take much to unsettle your opponent, if you have somewhere to hide during the day. All fear the things which walk at night, even hardened sellswords.

  But Dunkast stayed outside the Old City. There were houses along the East Wall he had kept them from firing, and there he crouched. Eventually he would have to come into the city, and then I would have him, I could almost taste it.

  The sixth night began well enough, with D’ri and I running further afield than we had yet dared past the Great Market and into a quarter of taverns, outdoor privies, and covered torkascruagh pens, their inhabitants in normal times let loose at the end of the short winter days to clean the Great Market’s floor of offal, dropped things, and any other detritus. I had some idea of seeing if D’ri’s ability to coax the splithoof beasts would lure them into some manner of insurrection as well.

  Once, the Danhai had used a grassfire to drive a herd of wild horses through an irregulars’ camp, and had a fine time hunting the survivors. I know, for I was one of them. Now I wondered what they felt, those high-crested tribesfolk, and my decision to sign with the irregulars to avoid dueling the father of the young man who had attempted to cage me seemed a matter of saving one life by killing many elsewhere.

  Much later, I found out the father had died of fever while I was in the mud and blood and stink of the third great Danhai offensive. How could I have known?

  You should have, Kaia. Each time I thought upon the matter, the same answer rose. You should have known better.

  D’ri halted, his knees going loose, and for a moment I thought the cold had struck him down. But no, it was merely the instinct of a thief on a rooftop, stopping without making noise or sending a loose tile plunging. He would have made a fine thief, my s’tarei.

  I almost plowed into him, halted just in time, and went into a crouch—the one instinct he had not learned yet, and it almost killed us both. I still do not know what made my foot flick out, catching him behind the knee. It could not have been the whistle of a bolt overhead, for the sound does not travel as swiftly in the confines of an ice-rimed street. Out upon the Plains, you may sometimes hear the missile before it reaches you if the wind is right, but in city-hunting?

  No. Instinct saved us both—or Power, whispering in my ear.

  My s’tarei went down hard, the crossbow quarrel cleaving air where his skull had been a moment before, and tumbled for the edge of the roof.

  Dunkast, tiring of the siege, had sent his Black Brothers into Kalburn to do a little night-hunting of their own.

  Cob-Colored Mare

  Darik did not plummet three floors to the cobbles, only because I made fish-lunging, wrenching lunge and ended up sideways, bleeding momentum with thrashing arms and legs, scraping over icy tiles and slowing us both just enough. Another bolt whistled past, curving sharply to crunch into the roof, plowing sharp tile-chips in a deadly spray. I rolled free of Darik’s limbs, my entire body singing with the metallic clarity of battle, and gained my feet with a lunge that threatened to tear something in my left side. Ran along the edge of the roof, hearing the thunk-thuk-thuk of crossbows singing, giving them a clear target so my s’tarei had time to gain his wits and his balance. Chips flew, and men yelled in Skaialan.

  Something’s wrong. How had they known we were atop that particular roof? Were their eyes that keen? Had a stray gleam given us away—

  “Kaia!” Darik, behind me.

  A sharp burst of yellow irritation filled my mouth with bitterness. I was drawing the bastards’ bolts so he could unlimber his bow, why was he yelling? I skidded to a stop, throwing my top half back, knees scraping painfully even through the reinforced patches on my trews as a blade whistled overhead. My left hand blurred for my largest knife; my right had already leapt for my dotani and halted, diving instead for my middle-knife, one filed for throwing.

  My opponent was a hulking shadow, scrambling sideways with eerie, ungainly grace. My right hand smacked down, half-gloved fist braced by knifehilt, giving me another point of contact with the roof as my left knee jumped up. If I could hook his knee with my left foot and twist, my largest knife could strike, flickering just-so into his thigh and hopefully opening the artery.

  I did not get the chance. He was too fast, and his boot slammed into my belly. Breath and sense both left me for a weightless moment, shocked lungs struggling to function; I slid sideways down the tiles, my head striking painfully and my shoulder giving a brief popping flare of hot pain as I tried to drive my right-hand knife down. It screeched along tiles, digging through ice, and the crossbows were silent now.

  They had done their work.

  A creeping, deadly, soft stickiness warred with the cold. I retched, harshly, and the shadow was above me again. It was a Black Brother, full of that queer inhuman looseness in all the joints, and I realized it was too dark not because the Moon was low and waning but because a bruise of clotted Power hung around the thing that had once been a man.

  That was why the foul gloves are doubly dangerous to adai, much as an infected boil is dangerous to an otherwise healthy body. If lanced, there is a chance the rest of the body will recover, but if it bursts inward, the woundrot races through internal
pathways and even a many-skilled Clau or Haiian healer cannot save you. The pus from such swellings reeks of corpsebreath, and can spread woundrot to any wounded bedmate as well.

  An adai, born exquisitely sensitive to Power and with that sensitivity nurtured since childhood, could easily be mazed by the unphysical stench and their unholy speed. As it was, I was bred, but not sensitive. A lifetime spent denying my own Power with a child’s intensity was enough to insulate me.

  Or so I had thought, when I considered meeting another Black Brother; I had not been allowed to strike the one in Kalburn’s Great Hall. This one had a sword, straight and heavy—not the best for rooftop work, with uncertain footing and a small target. But he did not need to be quick when his prey sprawled witless, shaking her braids, trying to clear her skull and force her lungs to work properly again. He only needed to be thorough, and lift his bright length of killing metal high. Of course the crossbow-wielders would either be reloading, or know that an unblacked blade was one of their own.

  Move, Kaia. MOVE!

  I could have rolled for the edge; the drop at this end of the roof might only break a few bones if I was lucky. Instead, I flung my left shoulder up, lungs still burning, my belly a white-hot mass of pain.

  I have been kicked in the stomach before, and by an ill-tempered Shainakh army mare. There is a story why they began calling me kaahai in the irregulars, for I got up after that cob-colored horse threw me across the picket line, tossed a rope bridle over her head, and took her for a bone-rattling, bucking, wild gallop across the autumn heat of the Plains just before the rains arrived to make hip-deep mud everywhere, riding until she learned my stubbornness outmatched hers.

  She was the best horse I’d ever taken into battle, mean-tempered and diabolically intelligent, and the only thing I regretted was not naming her before the battle that put a crossbow bolt in both her chest and Ammerdahl Rikyat’s back.

  You shall not die, Ammerdahl Rikyat. You owe me at dice. Perhaps my luck had run out.

  I could not stab the foul glove’s thigh, but my left hand shot out, blade reversed along my forearm, and caught his naked shin, grinding on bone after the thin skin and the long straplike anterior muscle parted. Which might have been enough to throw him off, but I curled around myself, wrapping around his right ankle too. My blade overshot, breaking free of shinbone and catching bootleather, then hooked back and bit deeply into his other calf.

  Let us see how well you dance now, friend.

  Freezing air filled my lungs again, and Darik arrived. Rattle of tiles, he launched himself, and his own boots, spark-crackling with Power, thudded into the Brother’s side. The big Skaialan, still a mere shadow to me, thumped aside, joints gone doll-loose, and rolled for the edge, his huge booted toe grabbing the inside of my elbow and almost taking my largest knife, my arm, and the rest of me with him.

  Clatter of metal hitting tile, a vise about my left wrist, a hoarse shout of effort. I wrenched my knife free and the Brother, tumbling like a mass of wet laundry, spilled over the edge and into empty air.

  I did not wait for the sound of body striking cobbles, a vicious curse hissing through my teeth as I attempted to surge up and my belly spasmed again, breath and sense both threatening to leave me until I ceased my rooftop-running ways.

  “Kaia!” D’ri did not yell, but the word still carried. I heard another low, deadly sound and went limp, his hand around my wrist biting as I pulled him the only possible direction—over and on top of me, hoping I would not stab him with either blade. He had dropped his left-hand dotani to catch me, and the roof’s ridgeline behind him boiled with large, ungainly, loose-limbed shapes.

  How many of those foul abominations did the cursed Ferulaine have? Too many was the answer, and the only thing in our favor was the crossbows’ silence for fear of hitting their own. It was a well-laid trap—how many others had Dunkast set across Kalburn?

  One trap is too many, Kaia, when you have sprung it unaware. Copper laid against the back of my tongue. Darik landed on me, driving all my breath out once more.

  If I ever managed to breathe again, I would visit a temple and make an offering, I decided. Any god would do, the first one I saw a temple for, even Kroth the head-god of this awful place. It wouldn’t hurt; the Moon, though jealous of Her children, would certainly understand.

  “Hai!” someone yelled, a familiar cry from a gruff throat. It was a s’tarei’s practice-yell when a strike landed, and sudden bright-orange blossoms cast crazy, dappling shadows. A low wump was clothing igniting, and a Black Brother, suddenly aflame, began to scream in a queer, high, keening voice like a hurt child.

  A massive noise rent the night below and Darik surged upwards, finding his balance and lunging across me to scoop up his fallen dotani. Then he was off, almost bent double against the slope of the ridgeline, running to aid Tyaanismir Atyarik, who was moving with all a s’tarei’s speed and grace, stabbing the burning Black Brother, and screamed his defiance again.

  Clash-Slither Music

  I made it to hands and knees, cough-choking, and the impossible happened. A shadow swelled next to me, and I almost planted my right-hand knife in Janaire’s throat. She grabbed my shoulders, a great furred hood falling back from her high-braided hair, and her soft face was the Moon’s in darkness, beautiful and serene. She glanced over her shoulder, Power sparked, and she jabbed a pair of fingers at another Black Brother, who began screaming in that same, high, childlike voice as he beat at the flames suddenly blooming from his rancid clothing. D’ri hit him, dotanii whirling in solid arcs, and I hissed another curse.

  The idiots. Now they were lit for the crossbows.

  But the half-dozen crossbows below did not speak, for Jorak Blacknose, his throat fortified with no little Skaialan bitter, foul-smelling ale, had dealt with them, and in fine fashion too. He’d sung a maddening-song to the penned torkascruagh and sent no few of them over the slippery, heaving cobbles right into the knot of bowmen. It stank of a battlefield below, and above there was flame and the spectacle of two s’tarei, both masters of their trade, dueling giants who burst into flame as Janaire made one hoarse sound of effort after another.

  It was a fine battle, but it was not quiet. I dragged in one breath after another, promptly forgetting my offering-vow like all good sellswords granted a few more moments of survival, and gathered my legs under me. Below, Jorak Blacknose hefted himself onto the slippery, heaving back of a maddened, shaggy black torkascruagh, wheeling the beast’s head around by the simple expedient of leaning forward to grab its ears. He gave another musical cry, and the beasts lowed, stamping, and wheeled, following him like a flock of woolcoats and their bellwether.

  Janaire made another low sound of effort. Calling flame is no easy task in the midst of a battle, but she held to her work with grim determination. I shoved my right-hand knife into its home, found my legs would indeed carry me, and pushed myself up, drawing my dotani.

  I meant to charge into the fray, but Janaire grabbed my left knee, her fingers sinking in with surprising strength. Her other hand jabbed out again, fingers fluttering, and I felt her pulling at Power, shaping it to her will, the effort stinging her eyes with salt sweat and dampening her skin under layers of cloth and fur. Her face was incandescent, and a pang went through me before I tore my knee from her grasp and surged forward.

  I was more use with a blade than with Power, and well I knew it.

  The last Black Brother gurgled, D’ri’s blade blurring to open his throat, the other blade reversed to bite even more deeply. They were taking the heads, to be safe. Arterial spray blossomed and stinking smoke rose in veils. Darik cried aloud, a s’tarei’s battle-madness filling him with clear red rage.

  Or was it mine? I could not tell. Steel met steel, clash-slither music.

  I snapped a glance at the street. At the near end, torchlight ran and sputtered. The alarum was well and truly raised; now it was a footrace. We would need swiftness and cunning to avoid the net.

  I could not worry for the
Skaialan bard; if I managed to gain safety for the other G’mai, it would have to be good enough. I would have liked to know how they followed me, but that could wait. There was one Black Brother left. I hurtled past Atyarik, dotani held low for the sweep, main knife reversed along my left forearm to ward off the descent—not of his axeblade, for that might have broken my arm or cut me too deeply to stanch. No, my speed—even winded and tender-bellied, struggling in layers of heat-conserving cloth and fur—was enough, again, and I took the strike of the axe-handle along the flat of the blade as my dotani swept in, my right hip popping out to provide leverage for the twist, the blade punching deep. His other hand was high, he bore two single-axes, not one of the massive double monsters.

  I took the only move I could. Falling back, twisting in midair, letting the slope to my back pull me down and away while my dotani whipped through his abdomen and a steaming lump of viscera spilled free, spattering noisome fluid in a wide spray. The twist saved me from being bathed, and Atyarik’s left-hand dotani whirled in, biting deep in the Skaialan’s neck. It takes some doing to sever a head, and chipping your blade on the cervical vertebrae is unpleasant at best.

  But a dotani in the hands of one trained by G’mai warmasters can find the spaces between bone, and whisper through like a lover at a keyhole. Or so tis said, and should you ever see a s’tarei fight, you will see it is truth.

  “Kaia!” Darik’s hand on the back of my jacket. He hauled me away, my foot turned on a tile, and we almost slid down the roof again and fell to the cobbles.

  The steam-smoking bodies lay scattered-strewn. Was the structure below empty? If not, were they listening to a pitched battle overhead as they huddled in cold darkness, or near a low fire?