by H. M. Long
The sound of laughter brought me back to my surroundings; my sheltering tree and Arpa companions. The tents had been erected and men vanished into them, swinging off packs and talking good-naturedly while others kindled fires and tended horses – Nisien among the latter.
But I didn’t look at my friend, or the Arpa. Instead, I observed a train of mountain goats leaping from one ledge to the next on the rainy mountainside, oblivious to the two-hundred pace drop below them. Their destination was a ravine, overgrown with brush and cutting deeper into the mountains. As I watched, they vanished one by one into its fold.
My eyes flicked back to the legionaries, then my bound hands. I didn’t need free hands to disappear into that ravine myself, but I would need the cover of night to reach it. Or a good distraction.
It was then that I saw the blood staining my trousers, beneath my rumpled tunic; thick, dark and spreading. The aching in my lower stomach intensified and I blinked down at myself in dull despair.
My bleeding. I had forgotten about my bleeding. It had come when I was in Souldern, but with all the stress and anxiety of the last few weeks, female cares had entirely left my mind.
I did not need more weakness in my body, not now.
I dragged myself upright. The movement caught Quentis’s attention, as I’d known it would. He left the shelter of the rock face, pulling up the hood of his cloak as he went.
“What is it?”
“I need cloth and privacy,” I told him with as much dignity as I could muster. Before he could question me, I pulled up the front of my tunic and showed him why.
Quentis staggered back as if I were contaminated. “Aux,” he called over his shoulder.
My heart lifted and my cheeks burned with embarrassment as Nisien came forward.
“See to the woman,” Quentis clipped, still refusing to look at me, and strode away.
Nisien, to his eternal credit, kept his eyes level with mine. “Wait one minute.”
True to his word, a minute later he came back with bandages from the healer and what looked to be an extra pair of his own trousers. He took my arm.
“Come, little Eangi,” he said, “let’s find you a private spot.”
The muscles of my legs had forgotten how to coordinate, and the cramping did little to help. I stumbled and wobbled, but by the time we reached a stand of rugged, shoulder-high scrub, I’d recovered a little.
“How are you?” I asked him, the priestess in me making a cautious appearance. “Considering… Oulden.”
His expression grew stony. “Oulden spent months in hiding. As far as I’m concerned, he deserted me long before he died. My only fear now is for my people – especially with Ashaklon in their midst. Will the binding hold?”
“Eang’s side may… for a time.” I hesitated, thinking of Silgi and her family and wondering just how truthful that statement was. So many of Eang’s older bindings had already failed. “But without Oulden, what will become of the Soulderni? Where will your dead go? Did Oulden have any Vestiges he could come back with, like Ried?”
Like Eang has me, I thought.
“I don’t know. Those are questions for priests, not me. Here, let me unbind you.”
He pulled a knife and went to work.
“You need a new patron,” I warned Nisien. “You can’t go about devoted to no god, especially at a time like this. Weakened or not, Oulden’s name has protected you since you were born. And what of your High Halls? How will the Soulderni get there if Oulden doesn’t vouch for them?”
He made a noncommittal grunt and the rope fell away. “I don’t know, and I’m not sure I care. I’m tired of the gods, Hessa. The day I see one worthy of worship, I’ll bow. But I refuse to grovel before another selfish, cowardly being just because they are more powerful than me.”
Despite myself, I thought of the power of the High Halls, amber as the gods’ own, sleeping in my bones. If a mere week in the High Halls had transformed me, a human, what had it done to the gods over millennia? Where might the inherent powers of the gods end, and the magic that they’d surely harvested from the Halls begin?
Was this, then, what Ogam had meant by the gods needing the High Halls?
Heresy. That line of thought was the purest form of heresy I had ever contemplated. I shoved it aside but it remained all the same, curled up at the back of my mind with Omaskat’s assertions that Eang was no goddess, Shanich’s whispers of the Miri and the Four, and the amber blood of the gods.
Nisien was still speaking. “Or because they claim to control my eternity,” he added.
Now doubly perturbed, I rubbed at my wrists and I accepted the bandages and new trousers. “It doesn’t matter,” I snapped, more vehement than I intended. “This world, our souls, are owned by the gods. You must serve someone.”
At the last, I reached to take the knife too, but Nisien held the blade away from me. “No, Hessa. No gods. And I’m sorry, I can’t let you have that.”
My mouth fell open. I hadn’t intended to use the knife for any devious purposes – at least, not yet. “I need it to cut fabric—”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because killing someone or making a foolish attempt to escape will not help you,” Nisien replied, but he could not hold my eyes. He added more quietly, “Or me.”
“So you’re willing to let Quentis kill me?” I retorted before I could think better of it. “You’re so loyal to the Arpa you’d let him poison me to death?”
“I would never let him kill you!” Nisien protested, alarmed at the accusation. “And I can’t just— Hessa, when, if the time is right—”
I shouldered into the bushes before he could finish his sentence – or see the betrayal on my face. Ensconced in foliage, I kicked off my boots and unbound my trousers with angry, uncoordinated fingers. But only half my anger was directed towards the Soulderni. The other half burned against myself, my traitorous doubts and Omaskat’s insidious statement that Eang was no true god.
Eang controlled my eternity. What else was a god?
Through the lower half of the scrub, I saw a second pair of legs join Nisien’s in a companionable stance. I paused, scowling and listening to the sound of misty rain on the leaves until the second man spoke. Estavius.
I quickly made suppositories and saw to my needs, glancing around as I did so to make sure I wasn’t being watched. But though this section of scrub offered little protection from the fine rain, it was high enough to block me from sight. It was also vast and thick, spreading to the east down the foot of the mountains, while to the north it crept into a ravine. The very ravine which the goats had vanished into.
I paused and studied the spot, gauging the distance between it and myself as my pulse began to thrum. I could run, right now. Yet if I did, I would leave Nisien vulnerable and bearing the blame of my escape.
But however kind he’d been, he had refused to give me the knife.
My heart clenched. Euweth’s fears for her son were coming true. He might be my friend, but perhaps his loyalties were too divided.
My forehead itched, clawing at my concentration. I scrubbed at it with the back of a hand, and one of Quentis’s runes, still painted on my face, came away in a streak of rust. I stared at it, at this stark reminder of the other priest’s broken power, and felt a rush of grim determination.
I could not control Nisien’s choices, but I could make my own. I began to knot my new trousers and wind my legwraps, mentally charting my path towards the cleft.
“Hessa, you’d better hurry,” Nisien said, reminding me how close he and Estavius stood. My heart slammed in my throat and my movements slowed. “Estavius here is trying to convert me to Aliastros.”
“No Arpa gods,” I retorted. “You’re a Northman, Nisien. And I need a few more minutes.”
Estavius said something that I couldn’t understand, and I felt a flash of resentment. Yes, the pale-eyed legionary had saved my life before and, in the right mood, I might even admit that I was starting to
like him. But if he was trying to sway Nisien to foreign gods, that changed matters.
The legionary’s voice came again, soft and urgent. Pleading.
“What’s he saying?” I asked, tying off one leg-wrap just below the knee and moving on to the next. I didn’t have time for this.
“That Aliastros was allied with Oulden,” Nisien translated. “He has sway in the High Halls and the Arpa Pantheon. That he’s the better choice, apparently.”
“You’re a Northman, Nisien,” I repeated, hoping against hope that that sentiment would stay with him and keep his wavering loyalties in check. “Call on Esach. Please.”
“I’m not calling on anyone.”
The two men fell into quiet discussion, and my attention was dragged back to the mountain.
I could wait no longer. I submerged a shot of regret and guilt, left my blood-stained trousers behind in mockery of Quentis, and began to work my stealthy way towards the cliff.
One step, two. A sparrow chattered as it darted over my head and branches tugged at my hair. Three steps. Four. I entered the shadow of the cliff. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. The ravine opened, narrow and filled with fallen rock. But the scrub ended some twenty paces ahead. From then on, I’d be exposed.
I broke into a run, moving as quietly and quickly as possible. Eang’s Fire awoke, coursing through my veins over a suppressed, honey-sweet taint.
“Esach,” I panted at the clouds above, “Goddess, I know your pain, but if you have any thought to spare, I could use some cover.”
Thunder immediately rolled. I was so shocked that I lost my footing and fell, smashing one knee into a sharp rock. I cursed and pushed forward, crawling up a former landslide.
I reached the top before I heard shouting. I did not look back. Instead, I took off across a ridgeline and ducked into another ravine, heading deeper into the mountain.
Further and further I pushed. The sky opened and thunder cracked, deafening me. Esach was not only alive, she was furious.
The rocks became slick and my progress slowed. At a section of even ground, I broke into a shambling sprint. I startled the herd of goats I’d seen earlier, now sheltering under an overhang, and their alarmed bleats chased me around another bend.
This path turned and ended in a cleft so steep all I could do was stare, aghast. There was a ledge some ten feet up, but I couldn’t reach it.
Footsteps pounded into the ravine at my back. I spun and drew up my Fire, ready to unleash the last of my strength on whoever appeared around the corner.
Estavius stumbled into sight. Whatever he saw in my face and stance, he threw up his own arms and took a step back. The storm burst around him as he did, billowing up the cleft and blinding me with rain. But though the wind buffeted him, he stood steady and unperturbed.
Behind his splayed fingers, he glanced from me to the far side of the cleft.
“Up?” he asked in his heavily accented Northman.
I gawked at him, blinking rain from my eyes. “What?”
“Up.” He lowered one hand cautiously, pulled a knife from his belt and held it out, hilt first. “Take and go.”
I might have remained there, gaping, had another jaw-cracking thunderclap not burst overhead. I jumped and braced as wind burst over us with renewed force, but Estavius still stood fast, unfaltering as wind and rain cavorted. His calmness unnerved me, a pillar of humanity in the violence of the unnatural storm. But his god was the Arpa God of Wind, was he not? Why should he fear the wind?
Echoing my thoughts, Estavius began to speak. But his words were not directed to me. They must have been a prayer, for the gale returned to the sky in one long rush. Estavius relaxed, pushing hair from his eyes with one hand, and offered me a nervous half-smile. With the other, he still held out the knife.
The sight spurred me. Whatever kindness Estavius was showing, whatever sway he held with his Arpa god, I needed to go.
The thunder still reverberated as I snatched the weapon, shoved it through my belt and began to climb up the narrow end of the ravine. The Arpa, meanwhile, trailed after me.
My fingers wrapped around wet stone. Rain streamed into my eyes and my boots scrabbled, but no amount of determination or will found me a proper foothold.
“Wait.”
I found Estavius no more than a pace away, hands laced into a stirrup.
I accepted the gesture without hesitation. He grasped my foot and hefted, boosting me up over the height of his head with a tight-jawed grunt. I scrambled onto the ledge and looked back down at his pale, serious eyes, suppressing a rush of gratitude – and sudden loneliness.
“Why are you helping me?” I asked him.
Estavius smiled and locked a fist over his heart. “Nisien,” he replied simply, then pointed to my cheeks, where Quentis’s runes had been. In vastly improved Northman he said, “Do not let the gods see that you stole their magic.”
With that, he turned and ran.
I scrubbed rain from my eyes and squinted after him. I remembered kneeling on the ground beside him after the Algatt attack, and how, just for a moment, I’d thought I’d seen a flicker of amber in his blood.
I laughed aloud, a short, stunned sound, and rubbed more rain from my eyes. Perhaps Estavius truly knew something about stealing from the gods. Or perhaps Aliastros blessed his worshipers in ways Eang would not.
But there was no time to wonder how much he knew or what it meant – or the revelation that he spoke more Northman than he’d pretended.
I reached the top of the cleft a few minutes later. The premature darkness of the storm hid me as I stumbled and leapt across the mountainside, descending here, ascending there. Finally, when I could go no further, I crawled into the shelter of a clutch of stunted pines and hunkered down.
After a few minutes, my frantic heart began to calm. With that came the Fire’s predictable fatigue, and I collapsed on a bed of damp deadfall, arms clasped around myself and the knife in one hand.
No one came for me. Alone and undisturbed, I rested until the rain eased, the clouds parted, and the eerie gloom of the storm transitioned into the true dark of night. Then, lulled by the retreating rumble of Esach’s rage, I nestled my cheek into a fragrant, sticky bed of pine needles and slept a true, deep sleep.
* * *
I awoke grudgingly. Light met my face and my consciousness peeled itself from the recesses of sleep, slipping back into my fingers and toes and forcing my eyes open.
I had just enough time to roll sideways before bile hit my teeth. I vomited a thick black substance onto the ground. Coughing and spluttering, I wiped pine needles and bile from my face and sank onto my bottom, trembling from head to toe.
It was dawn. Considering I had also fallen asleep at dawn, this disconcerted me until I realized that the ground was nearly dry. I had slept through an entire day and night.
Now I was starving, and bleeding completely through my trousers again. It was time to move on.
For the first hour, I skulked like a wary animal. But the mountains in late summer were laden with food, and there were only the beasts to share it with. I ate berries and leaves and drank from creeks until, around mid-afternoon, realized I was following a path. Even then, it took the sight of a circular stone building to understand that the path was, naturally, made by the Algatt.
I darted for cover behind a boulder and peered out at the building. Its stone walls sat under the deep eaves of a wooden roof, where firewood was layered in upside-down triangles all the way to the rafters. The heavy wooden door was closed, and there was enough debris gathered at its feet to tell me it hadn’t been opened in a long while.
I crept across the open space and reached for the latch. It was high on the door, little more than a wooden handle dangling from a cord of braided leather. I pulled.
The latch lifted with a squeak and the door swung inward, letting a slice of twilight into the murk beyond. I stepped outside the patch of light and waited for my eyes to adjust, clinging to the knife.
The buildin
g was a stable or a herder’s hut. A raised oven in the center of the room yawned open, revealing old coals. Racks of beds, four in total, sat at head height while the central chimney let in a circle of light. The smell of livestock clung to everything.
I stared at the beds for a long time. They were little more than shelves, but they were off the ground. I could start a fire. I could rest and tend to myself. Like as not, there would be fresh water nearby.
But could I afford to linger? I scrubbed at my tired eyes with the heels of my hands and sagged back against the wall, trying to force myself into a wise decision.
Then I saw supplies tucked up under the eaves. I hauled myself onto one of the beds and, perched on its creaking frame, unwrapped a tinderbox, blanket, water flask and pouch with bone awl and gut.
There was no decision to be made after that. I built a fire, filled my belly with hot water, and went to sleep.
I slept until the middle watch. Unable to return to slumber, I rolled over and stared at the glistening coals in the oven. Orange twisted across their surfaces, and, occasionally, a pop of bright flame illuminated the hut with its stone walls, wooden struts and hard-packed earthen floor.
Perhaps it was the warmth or the hush of the night, or the reality that I was finally free, but I felt calmer than I’d been in two months. And in that calm, I reflected upon my new circumstances and the road ahead.
My first concern was Quentis. Assuming he was the driving force behind my captivity, I hoped that Polinus would not spare the men to hunt me after the first night. If I happened across them by accident, I had little doubt that I would be recaptured. Otherwise, only Quentis and his Arpa God of Gods, Lathian, posed a lingering threat.
Secondly, the Algatt. I could not act on the assumption that they had all fled the mountains. If any were still here, they would be doubly dangerous.
Thirdly, the supposedly rogue legionaries that had started all of this by slaughtering the Algatt. If they were still alive and still here, I needed to avoid them at all costs.
Fourth, the Gods of the Old World. I had no idea who had attacked the Archeress and her companion in the High Hall, or if they had lived, but I could not disregard the fact that the Gods of the Old World might come after me.