The War with the Mein

by David Anthony Durham

  For a few moments he swam in nostalgia. How to explain why this view lacked nothing compared to the shimmering blue waters around Acacia? He did not love this place for its soft virtues and pleasures. Nor did he believe anymore that his people were the finest on earth. He had witnessed too much bravery in others and seen too much beauty in foreign things to hold to this narrow belief. He loved the Mein simply because…well, because it needed to be loved. Perhaps this was a foolish thought, but it was the best he could do to explain it. Even if he had the words to express himself, he doubted the young man beside him would take them to heart. Even their ancestors set their sights someplace else….

  “Brother of Heberen,” a voice said, “the ancestors foretold your coming.”

  Haleeven knew who spoke without even looking. He must have approached in his fur-lined slippers. Only a Tunishnevre priest would insult him by not using his given name, and only they would claim to have received word of him through the Tunishnevre, when everybody else took their news from the more earthly means of dispatches and messengers. His pleasant reveries vanished.

  “First priest,” he said, managing a smile, “the ancestors not only foretold my coming, they commanded it.”

  The priest’s lips crinkled, two thin lines of chapped, peeling skin. His complexion was the ghostly white preferred by men of his order. His hair was a straw blond, intentionally plucked thin so that his scalp showed through it. With the sunken quality of his features, he looked much like the preserved remains of the ancestors he served. He said, “Yes, but Hanish took his time in sending you. Nine years. An absurd delay…”

  “There were so very many things to see to.”

  “An absurd delay,” the priest said again, stretching out the last word as if Haleeven’s understanding of it was in question. “There can be no excuse for it. Hanish will know my displeasure, believe me.” He turned and stared out, cold-eyed, at the approaching horde. “These are our workers?”

  “Fifty thousand of them,” Haleeven said, “give or take a few hundred.”

  “You have brought southern foreigners?” the priest asked, squinting.

  Haleeven had expected the query. “Yes, but only to carry baggage and supplies. To maintain the road and accomplish the myriad tasks ahead of us. They will not handle the ancestors or any sacred objects.” The first priest probed him with his eyes, unimpressed by the assurances. Haleeven added, “You will oversee all the arrangements personally, I hope, to assure that the foreigners profane nothing nor insult the ancestors. But it’s appropriate, don’t you think, that Acacians should break their backs on the Tunishnevre’s behalf?”

  The priest did not say exactly what he thought about this, but he voiced no further objections.

  Late that evening, Haleeven, alone in a torch-lit passageway, approached the underground hold that contained his ancestors. He had already met with the rest of the priests. He had handed over presents to the few nobles still in Tahalian and visited the Calathrock. There he had watched a feeble display put on by a corps of young soldiers. The enormous chamber was still a marvel of hardwood construction, but it was meant to house many more bodies, those of burly-armed, long-haired men—not thin-shouldered children who had only ever dreamed of battle. Haleeven could tell that the people welcomed him and longed to impress upon him their steadfast resilience and faith in the old ways. Something in their fervent intentions saddened him, as it did to walk nearly empty hallways, being struck time and again with memories of persons either dead or far from Tahalian now. He did not often think disapprovingly of Hanish. On the upkeep of his home fortress, however, the young chieftain may have become lax and forgetful.

  Reaching the chamber door, Haleeven paused to steady himself. His heart beat with what seemed an irregular frequency. His legs were stiff and aching, something he had not noticed until just that moment. He was an aging man, and he was tired. At the same time he tingled with nervous energy. He had ridden hundreds of miles to get to this very spot. He had imagined this moment endless times. He leaned against the door and felt it shift. He stepped inside, knelt at the edge of the chamber, and pressed his forehead to the chill stones of the place. He held it there until the cold touch began to feel like heat instead. Only then did he straighten and let his gaze rise.

  Dimly lit by a bluish glow from no obvious source, the scene made Haleeven’s skin crawl. Above him stretched a cylinder imbedded with stacked protuberances, row upon row, layer upon layer, each jutting out of the earthen wall, arranged in uniformity, like an enormous beehive with hundreds of chambers. The area directly above him rose into fading perspective, perhaps a hundred layers tall. But this was only one alcove. Before him opened another, and beyond that another and yet another. Each of the shadowy shapes was a preserved corpse, a dried shell that had once been a Mein, wrapped in gauze and preserved both by the priests’ efforts and by the power of the curse that bound the souls within those shells to death without release, to the physical plane but without the pulse and warmth of life. They were no different from Haleeven himself. They were men like he. Whether they had lived fifty years before or five hundred years before, they had spoken his language and roamed this high plateau. And they all had lived briefly beneath the threat of an eternal punishment. As did he.

  Haleeven walked forward and began to intone the words that Hanish had sent him with. They would already know why he was there, but he went through the formality of announcing himself. He asked forgiveness for disturbing them and testified as to his oath to serve them. He promised them that tomorrow he would meet with the engineers, the architects, the drivers. There was a monumental undertaking awaiting them. He would waste no time starting the move. They were only a short time away from ultimate release and final revenge.

  The Tunishnevre did not acknowledge him overtly, but there was a shift in the air that in his heightened awareness he could not help but note. They seemed to whisper, sounds that were like groans from deep in the earth. He sensed the sounds, but he could not say he actually heard them. Each time he paused to listen, there was naught but dead silence. Only when he formed words enough to fill his head did the chamber seem to echo with comments thrown at him, indecipherable though they were. Laced with malice. He felt himself threatened with extinction, with complete obliteration. But for all of this he could not pinpoint one true sound, one true motion as small as an exhalation of breath in the entire chamber.

  So strange, the power of them. Haleeven could not say he understood it completely. He had never been blessed with that knowledge. They were dead. He was in a massive tomb, bodies stacked row upon row, as cold and lifeless as the earth around them, incapable of effecting change upon the world. In truth, they were a mystery to him. Had circumstance been different he might have communed with the Tunishnevre himself. He had only been one step away from the chieftaincy in his youth, one dance. But it was an enormous step, one that he could not manage. No one could say that Haleeven was a coward; yet he would never have been able to commit to taking the life of someone he loved. Because of that he never grasped for his rough people’s throne.

  Looking at the shadows above him, he knew the vagaries of his path did not matter. He was proud to have served his brother, and he was proud to follow his nephew’s leadership now. He believed himself to be the young chieftain’s main confidant. Maeander officially held that post, but Haleeven sensed the unacknowledged friction between the two. Perhaps Hanish did not even recognize it. This seemed unlikely, sharp as he was, but we are often blind to animus in those closest to us. It nagged at him that he had not brought these things up with Hanish before departing for the north, but there would be time after he returned. Maeander would not harm his brother before the Tunishnevre were satisfied. And the Akaran princess…well, whatever Hanish felt for her, it would not stop his blade from slitting her neck. He had spent his entire life striving to please the ancestors. Haleeven was confident Hanish would not fall short now.

  But he should not be thinking any of these things now,
not in this chamber. He whispered words of temporary parting. He rose to his feet, spun slowly on his heel, and moved for the portal. Nothing stopped him. Of course not. Powerful as they were, they were also helpless without him.

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-TWO

  They stripped naked. It was an awkward procedure, each of them balanced on one leg or the other. The boat beneath them pitched in the chop. They shook off all clothing and stood a moment in the starlight, glancing at each other and getting used to their nudity. They would swim better this way. Moisture slipped more quickly from flesh than it could be wrung from cloth, and this would matter when they reached their target. And then they began to strap their weapons, water flasks, waterproof wrappings, and a few supplies to their naked torsos. They were each some time fastening bands tight around their wrists and ankles. Metal fishhooks had been sewn into the leather in such a way that they protruded outward, sharp barbs over an inch long.

  “All right,” Spratling said, once he had slipped his bow diagonally over his shoulder, short sword at his hip, dagger strapped to his lower leg, “let’s get these festivities under way. Be careful not to snag yourself or anybody else. And be careful with that pill, Wren. We’ll need it to medicate the giant.”

  A short time later he dove headfirst into the warm, heaving sea. Ten others followed him: all veteran raiders, eight men and two women skilled at close-quarters death. One of the women—Wren, who carried the “pill” strapped to her back, a round object about the size of an ostrich egg—had shared his bed since the winter months. But he would not think of this during the mission. If either of them died during it, they could mourn afterward. Right now, this moment and those immediately following were all that mattered. He welcomed the danger because the focus it required would allow no thought but the present. He had almost come to desire turmoil. Quiet moments found him mulling over Leeka Alain’s claims. This family of his…those responsibilities…a future calling him that bore no resemblance to the life he had grown into…he felt increasingly that he could not avoid those things, but neither was he ready fully to take them on.

  The current at this time of the year still flowed up from the south. The air temperature, however, was chilly with early spring. They swam away from the sloop that had transported them out to the point. Within moments it was but a shadow behind them, a patch in the dark, soon lost to them altogether. The ship bore no lantern. It would not do so until they were on their way back. Then the few crewmen left there would light a beacon to guide them in. The swimmers’ destination, however, was obvious to them all, lit as it was by rows upon rows of shining lights.

  Whether by night or day the league warship was an impressive vessel to behold. As they swam it loomed in the distance, as still as a land mass in its deep water anchorage. It was a monstrosity, twice as long as a trading barge, stacked level upon level like the tall housing complexes of Bocoum. Along each tier ran hundreds of baskets for crossbowmen and slots for archers. The enormousness of it was meant to overwhelm with its martial scale. There was no doubt that it achieved this.

  So far, the four of these vessels that the raiders had faced had torn them to bits. Their prows were reinforced by massive trees, cast in metal, large and solid enough to shatter normal vessels. The decks were so high that boarding was impossible. Spratling’s nail was rendered obsolete, nothing but a pin trying to prick a whale’s hide. These warships were not things to be pierced and rushed upon, as had been Spratling’s technique. They were floating fortresses that dealt out death from behind an unassailable bastion. They were larger by far than their wolf ships, and they suggested an aggressive intent the league had never shown before. Without the slightest warning one of them had beached itself on the shallows off the shore of Palishdock and disgorged an entire army. They overran the place, wreaking instant vengeance that caught the raiders by surprise.

  The raiders had fled Palishdock with the few things they could carry. They had lived in transitory hiding ever since. Fortunately, the raiders never kept all their wealth in one place and never housed much of it at all at their main outpost. Dovian had taught Spratling that when he was still a boy. Bit by bit, from island after island, Spratling withdrew coins and treasure from the soil. With it he funded ventures such as the one he was on this evening. The war between the raiders and the league had begun in earnest. Spratling thought of it as a personal vendetta, especially as Dovian withdrew from a leadership role. He spent most of his time whispering with the old Acacian soldier, the two of them full of import Spratling did his best to ignore.

  Swimming toward one of the warships, Spratling had to remind himself again and again that there was a deadly logic to his attack. He was not here to destroy the mountain rising out of the water before him. There was more than one way to strike a blow. It just seemed obvious—the only course, really—to meet such overwhelming strength with the unexpected.

  The warship was anchored at four points, four ropes as wide around as mature pines, shooting down into the ocean depths. The raiders arrived at one of these near the rear of the ship. They trod water with their mouths open to suck in air, riding the swells, spitting out jets of water between breaths. Anxious though he was to grasp the rope, Spratling knew it needed to be a well-timed action. Each passing wave crest lifted them up and down, moved them from one spot to another. It took some time for him to get into position. He was third, actually, to find his belly pressed against the rough cords at the high point of a wave. He threw his arm around the ridges of the weave, slammed his ankles hard against it, and felt the barbs sink in. It took some effort to pull each one out, but as he reached higher, one limb at a time, he hooked them in again. Thus he inched slowly away from the waves. He soon found a tempo and ease in the motions, but still it was slow work for him and the others, each of his party like ants creeping toward a banquet laid out on a table high above.

  An hour later, dripping on the deck, panting and fatigued, arms and legs rubbery and chafed red, Spratling turned and helped the others over the railing. He whispered reminders of the need for silence and stealth. Once they were all aboard, they stripped off the fishhook wrist and ankle bands and flung them toward the sea below. They rubbed their hands over portions of their body to wipe clean the moisture. A warm breeze caressed the ship from prow to stern and helped to blow their naked skin dry. The archers among them strung their bows with dry strings they had carried in the waterproof wrappings. This took a few minutes, but with all his motions Spratling indicated that they were not to rush. Each thing in its time, each step carried out in the appropriate tempo.

  He did not motion to them when it was time to move. He just stepped forward, his feet spry and careful on the slick deck. The others followed. They did not get far before they had to halt again, bunched together in the shadows cast by a cabin. Guards sat in baskets on the masts, three sets with two in each. They could get no nearer without being spotted. Spratling turned and faced the others. They were solemn, their eyes fixed on his face for direction. He smiled, shrugged, managed to indicate with his eyes that it was quite an accomplishment to get this far. They were on a league battleship, unbeknownst to anyone, naked and strolling free in the night air. The fact that he could convey this without words was one of his gifts. Grins spread from one face to another. With that, Spratling knew they were ready.

  They walked forward with their arrows nocked and bows drawn. One of the guards saw them straightaway, but before he could shout, a triangle of metal and a shaft of wood behind it punched through his eye socket and into his skull. His head snapped with the force of it, something Spratling would remember afterward. He was only the first. In the space of a few seconds a barrage of arrows flew from all around him. All of them save one hit their targets in the chest or head. One stopped a man’s mouth in mid-exclamation. The single missile that missed sailed away into the starlight, no sound or sign of where it might have landed.

  The party divided. Several rushed to dispatch the forward lookouts and anybody else on d
eck. Spratling and the rest rounded the main cabin structures and punched through into the pilot’s room. The pilot and his crew were huddled around a chart. They looked up casually at first, as if they were not surprised at the sight of naked, dagger-wielding intruders. The mood swiftly changed. The butchery the raiders went to was fast and efficient; they were not without experience at this, after all. A man named Clytus seized the pilot and threw him facedown to the deck with a force that split two of the man’s teeth and sent them skittering across the smooth boards.

  Within a few moments all the crew was dead or breathing their last. Spratling had not wet his blade yet, but his target was not in this chamber. Toward the back of the room was a closed door, the frame around it embossed in gold, the design on it the emblematic dolphin of the league. He aimed his heel at the latch and kicked it open. Inside he found the person he sought.

  The leagueman was tall and spindly, his arms those of a starving man. He had just climbed out of his low bed and was fumbling to get his bearing. His ribs, seen for a moment before he pulled his gown into place, heaved against a thin membrane of flesh. Spratling did not lay hands on this one either, but the man and woman who dashed past him did.

  Back in the main cabin, the leagueman’s arms were pinned at either side, the flat of two knives against his skin, one at either side of his head just beneath his small ears. The elongated cone of his skull, covered with sparse hair, seemed a far greater nudity than that of the raiders’. Despite this, he showed scorn for the intrusion and the slaughter. There was no inkling of fear on his haughty features. Indeed, he seemed incapable of seeing the scene around him as anything but an annoyance.